Transcripts For CSPAN Washington Journal 04292020 20240713

Cofounder and director of the institute of human virology at the university of Maryland School of medicine. Vaccinesses potential and treatment for covid19. Washington journal for april 29. The Treasury Department reports 158 billion in stimulus payments have been paid out in the first three weeks. Host the Department Reports secret service, survivor disability nonfilers should have their payments direct deposited by today. In our next hour, we want to hear from you. If you either requested or received federal or state financial help because of the coronavirus pandemic. Whether that be stimulus payment, unemployment assistance, help with rent, or help for your Small Business. Heres your chance to let us know about your experience in this next hour. If you requested aid, 2027488,000 is the number to call. If you received aid, 2028001 is the number to call. You can also section us at 2027488003. Tweet us cspanwj. Post on facebook at facebook. Com cspan. Stimulus checks as they are known is probably the most direct payment that most americans will receive. Their some eligible requirements because of that according to the federal government. The i. R. S. Saying that if you are a single u. S. Resident, have an adjusted gross income of less than 99,000. Also if you file as head of household and earn less than 146,500. And if you file jointly without children and earn less than 198,000 that he your eligible requirements for that. It goes on to say there will be 1,200 payments to individuals with that adjusted gross income and 2,400 to married couples joining filing jointly. Thats one route that some people have looked to as far as Financial Assistance during this time. Unemployment assistance is another route, too. The pandemic emergency Unemployment Compensation thats provided according to sources saying that it would provide an additional 13 weeks of state Unemployment Benefits. Also it would be available after someone exhausts all their regular state u. I. Benefits f you go to the wall street journal this morning its those who are laid off and getting assistance the subject of a story by eric under the headline half of workers get more paid laid off saying the package of coronavirus stimulus Laws Congress passed and President Trump signed in march included a 6 behind boost to weekly Unemployment Benefits through july 31. Thats added to state benefits over the next coming weeks, the average weekly payment to a laid off worker should rise to about 978 from the nearly 378 the Labor Department said was paid on average late last year. Also adding that Labor Department statistics show half of fulltime workers earn 9357 or less each week. That 957 or less each week. A couple routes there as far as possible payments. Maybe you looked or requested to receive one of those. Maybe help for your Small Business as well. We want to hear about your experience in this first hour. If you requested it, thats the number to call. Call us at 2027488,000. And received it, 2027488001. Post on our social media sites. Some have done that. Lisa off of facebook when it comes to this question. Sought out, yes. And received, no. Ann saying the whole house, his household has. Adding we got wrecked pretty hard by this. Laura off facebook saying she applied for the portauprince on day one. I have heard Paycheck Protection Program on day one. I am a Small Business with a handful of employees. I employ hundreds of contractors. Not one business i know of has received anything from ppp. The president referenced the administrations efforts in helping out businesses during this time. At the same time the president talked about his use of the defense production act. Heres the president from yesterday. You are going to sign an executive order today about Meat Packaging plants. It affects liability for them. What efforts or measures are you looking at for liability for other industries and businesses. President trump we havent been talked, hasnt been asked on other industries yet, but with the meatpacking and with the transportation we have had difficulty where they are having a liability thats really unfair to them. We are going to be doing that fairly soon. Its getting drawn up, i should be signing that over the next or sofmente which frees up the entire system. I fully understand it. You can see that whole presentation on cspan. Org. We start with mark seeing hes saved aid good morning. Caller good morning. Im on essential employee because i work for the post office. Im a letter carrier. I received the federal stimulus check a couple days ago. Im already working. I received a paycheck already from work. So im not in dire straits. I used my paycheck my stimulus check from the federal government for was to pay my mortgage off. Imagine if i didnt have my job, i would be worried about not being able to pay off the mortgage. I had 1200 from the federal government. Put it right towards the mortgage. First thing i did. Thats all i can do. Host if i may ask is that 1200 cover the whole mortgage . Did you have anything left over . I put it towards the principal. Host what do you think about recent statements made about the Postal Service in light of the coronavirus by the administration . Caller think should bail owl the post office. Some people have to receive mail, i suppose. Im sure its probably waste in terms of management or overtime, perhaps. I think the post office is required in this country. Yeah. Host warren, massachusetts. Keith who has requested it. Hi. Caller hi there. How you doing. Host fine. Caller im just curious. Im just shy of retirement age. Im dust abled with quite a few medical issues, including im a cancer survivor. My son is my fulltime caregiver. Neither one of us has heard anything about any stimulus checks. He filed simple return that he needed to file. I just havent heard anything from them. I get Social Security on the site, i. R. S. Site it says if you receive Social Security it will come that way. I just havent heard anything either way from anybody. Host i know in some cases some Social Security recipients will receive money as of today. Thats being reported. You have gone to the website, the i. R. S. Website to check that out. What was your experience with that . Caller no Information Available. Host how many times have you gone to the site . Im curious. Caller a couple times a week. Like i said, the information was put in there i already had my direct deposit information there. Social security, they have that. And my son, he doesnt get paid, he just takes care of me. Brings me to doctors and treatments. He tried to get one just because hes not making any money. Hes just taking care of me. Nothing there, either. He did the simple return. Did everything that was approved we were supposed to do, then it says no Information Available for about a month now. Host if you go to the i. R. S. Gov website, we showed you a bit ago, the application that you are talking about, the get my payment site, it has some information there that youll need payment status or payment type. The information about your tax filings. And then adding the reasons you may not may get a quote status not available saying that get my payment will return payment status not available if the application doesnt have your data and if you are not eligible for a payment. Theres other information there at that website at i. R. S. Gov. Rose city michigan asked aid, hello. Caller hi. Host youre on. Go ahead. Caller sorry. I was trying to i applied for unemployment and was given ineligible for some reason. Host you mean you applied for federal assistance for unemployment . Caller correct. That was included with applying for the state of michigan. Host what kind of work did you do . Were you laid off because of coronavirus . Caller correct. Host if i may ask what kind of work do you do . Caller construction. Host ok. Whats your situation like if you dont get that assistance if i may ask . Caller ill be without it. Unfortunately. I dont have any money. Running out of money. Host joe in michigan telling of his experience. You heard about the last caller talking about the i. R. S. Website issues. The Los Angeles Times posted this story in the last couple days, you can find it on their website, saying getting a quote payment status not available error when you are trying to learn the status, try this one weird trick that works. Enter your street address in all caps. Yes, the i. R. S. Website had a big update this week its possible the site just poured over your information and let you log in without having to shout at it. Type in your street address the normal way, if that doesnt work, dont despair have found intererk there street address in the capital letters was the key to getting in and entering their bang account information to have their stimulus funds deposited electronically instead of waiting for a check in the mail. If you want to find out more about that and what that reporter learned, the Los Angeles Times. In bristol, tennessee. George says hes requested aid. Good. Good morning. Caller yes. Im wondering when people on Social Security is going to get their stimulus checks. They say that you dont have to do anything in order to get it. I have been checking every day and havent gotten anything yet. Host when you say check, you mean checking the website for information . Caller well, i checked that, too. According to what they say you shouldnt have to. They automatically is there some other way of doing that . Host the i. R. S. Gov is the best website to do that. As far as Social Security recipients, the Washington Post having this storery, this is from yesterdays post saying if you are waiting on your stimulus money heres an estimate of when more payments will be delivered. Social security survivor and disability nonfilers will see Economic Impact payments in their Bank Accounts by today. According to a treasury spokeswoman. S. S. I. Nonfilers should begin seeing payments in early may. And veteran benefit recipients should begin recovering their stimulus payment by early may 2 according to the Treasury Department. Terry off facebook adding our one employee who filed on 38 27 hasnt received a dime. We have yet to receive stimulus. Our government is the most blatant display of inefficiency ill ever witness. They failed the american people. We are way past who is to blame at this point. Lets hear from curtis in missouri. Go ahead. Caller how you doing today . Host finement caller im a Small Business and we requested the Small Business assistance, and we got an email said that it was approved and that they would deposit it to our account, but we never seen anything yet. We are a small trucking company. And i mean we are being hit hard. We have a total of seven trucks. With the seven trucks i got seven guys driving. They actually havent had any assistance to help them. I have had to take the rates down because rates on these we got trucks sitting, that usually pay us 2 a mile is paying 70 cents a mile. We cant even get loans because everybodys fighting over. Looking to move loads across this country. We are not getting any type of assistance. Host the assistance you applied for, thats the Paycheck Protection Program you are talking about . Caller the 10,000 Small Business loan that they was assisting us with. Host youre saying that you were approved but havent seen the money yet . Caller no. We havent seen anything. We was approved. They send us an email saying we were approved for the 10,000, but we havent received anything. We were going to go ahead and file for the portauprince Paycheck Protection Program as well. We have to figure out how to do that and see what website to go on to do that. My guys, they took a 25 cents crent paycheck to keep working. Because we cant afford i would have to shut down in order to pay them guys 50 cent a mile like we usually do. We cant afford it with the way the rates are. Rates are jumping down for 70 cent a mile. Host as far as going to lenders, if you dont get this money, are there other lenders that help out Trucking Industries that perhaps you can go to . Or is the lifelines pretty much exhausted . Caller pretty much exhausted for the lifeline because we went through u. S. Banks before. Our initial loan that weve got. They helped us from the start. And i just we are trying to go back and get more money from them just puts us in bigger debt. Host curtis talking about his trucking business there in missouri. Carl from new jersey texted us this morning saying that hes on Social Security. My payment came direct deposit at 4 00 this morning. James also seeking aid, hes in pittsburgh. James, good morning. Hello. Caller how you doing. Host fine. Youre on. Aller hold on a second. Sorry about that. Host go ahead. Caller my question is, i have been on disability since 1979. And they cut they increase for s. S. I. I get s. S. I. And s. S. A. , and im supposed to get the status check of 1200 one, too. I havent received any. Their question is my brothers a truck driver, too. He hasnt received his, neither. He files taxes. Host you have checked as of this morning . We have had at least one person on Social Security saying they got their payment as of today. It was direct deposited. Caller so is mine. Im what you calls flair account. I said i called yesterday and said im probably not going to getny. I dont understand why they are saying that. Host who is the they . Caller the company that i got my card from. Host they told you that you werent going to get any assistance and couldnt tell you why. Caller right. Host what other avenues do you have if you dont get this assistance . Caller so i make a month, im lucky if i make 900 a month. My mortgage here is 550. My wife, she has a parttime job, a truck payment is 500 a month. Plus basic cable. Plus gas and electric and storage. How you supposed to live off of that . Host james in pittsburgh, pennsylvania, telling about his experience on the larger scope of business lending, the Washington Post this morning profiles the federal reserves efforts, 500 500 billion in corporate aid. Talking about the liabilities with offering no requirements. This is jeff and peter reporting that unlike other portions of relief for american businesses, this aid will be exempt from rules passed by congress requiring recipients to receive limit dividend executive compensation and stock buybacks and does not direct the companies to maintain certain employment levels. The corporate debt purchases by the fed stand in stark contrast with other portions of federal aid for u. S. Businesses that come with requirements to protect jobs or limit spending. The Paycheck Protection Program, which offers 659 billion for Small Businesses, requires companies to certify that the money will be used to, quote, retain workers and maintain payroll or make mortgage payments, lease payments, or utility payments. But main Street Program offering up to 600 billion to midsized businesses forbids companies from issuing dividends or places limits on executive compensation according to a term sheet issued by the fed. Lets go to everyyet washington. Good morning. Aller good morning. I just got an express card, and go on to the website and im having moved around all over rying to find information. I have disabilities. Am i going to be able to get the 1,200 in that express . How is it going to be . I tried to update it and when i go to that website im being tossed everywhere. Host you received no assistance. Have you tried to call anybody from the i. R. S. Or Treasury Department . Caller no. Because i dont know who i need to call because i was told to go to that website. Host thats sheri talking, many talking about their website experiences from the i. R. S. Gov. We showed you that website and the information you need to find out the status if youll get a stimulus payment or not. Philadelphia, pennsylvania. This is devin, says he received it. Hello. Caller good morning. Yes. I did receive mine, but im telling you i used to be a government employee. I applied for unemployment, and they are saying that pennsylvania is not under the extended benefit period. And they sent me a rejection letter. I talked to many people and they said they got the same thing. Im saying how do you expect people to live without unemployment . I did get the stimulus, but many of the businesspeople im talking to, they are getting hit hard. Especially, sad to say, the minority of businesses because they dont have access to the capital and they dont have access to the funds that they need. Host what type of work did you do for the federal government . Caller i worked for the local government. Code and administration. Licensing, regulating construction workers and things like that. Host did you get laid off because of the pandemic . Caller no. We were downsizing and i took a layoff. When i did i tried to go for the unemployment and they said under the extended benefit period its not currently active. It seen even says that on their website and i have been trying to call the state capital. I tried to call the Governors Office to see if he can look into that. This is a critical time. Host devin in philadelphia, pennsylvania. This is steve in brooklyn off of our text saying they received he received the 1200 in stimulus. He adds the feds and new york state and new york city also snatched three times that amount in tax from my business. We are 02 on the Paycheck Protection Program loan application of less than the 50,000. We have no choice to open our key lime pie bakery. Open to walk anyone business. Another baker walkin business. A overwhelm who owns a bakery in i forget the state. She talks about her experiences with the Paycheck Protection Program. Shes saying its difficult to successfully use the program. The hurdles are high. Besides rent, utilities, the loan is meant to be spent on payroll within 60 days if employers reach the same amount of employees by the end of the period, then the amount spent on pay is forgiven. Any unforgiven portion turns into a loan to be paid back fully in 18 months. Even if we do manage to hire 135 employees and pay them for the next 60 days, it would be impossible for to us retain those employees while revenue is down 50 to 80 . An economy with over 26 Million People unemployed, consumer demand will be severely reduced. She adds, that it should be possible for the use the fund for other purposes. Almost all business vs. A backlog of unpaid bills as revenue dried up overnight. Everyone will benefit from businesses being able to pay their vendors who could also possibly rehire some of their employees. This is Jackie Victor writing that, the founder and owner of after lon international aftera lon interinitial breads in detroit. Caller thank you for taking my call. Im a first go around with the p. P. P. We applied and got nowhere. The second goround we applied about a week ago, we got a response and email from bank saying that they got the application. Its not any guarantee well get anywhere and more than likely the funds are slated to run out. Im concerned. Host what type of business do you do . Caller we run business between h. H. H. P. C. , we got about 20 employees and my wife and i fudging to keep them on payroll. Host how has that industry been affected since the pan democrat snick caller we have been hit by everybody. We are trying our best to keep the employees onboard. We are trying to do what we can do. Thats why its critical we get help from the p. P. P. Host in the meantime are you still paying the employees the same or is there a change in how they are compensated . Caller we are trying to do the best. We are paying what we were paying before to keep them onboard because we have some of these people. Eight, nine, 10 years. We are relying on the help. On the first goround we tried. Second goround we got a response. I think yesterday or the day before saying they got the application. But i dont like the term youre saying maybe the funds will be depleted. Maybe they know something i dont. Host thomas shares his experience. Hes in vermont. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Thank you. Little nervous here. I see how so many people are hurting, not getting the paycheck, businesses not able to stay hope. Im a one han show, bill trucking thing. One man show, little trucking thing. What i have done in the last six years working for myself is every month i put 100 away in a savings account. And over the six years, thank god i have done this, is that i had at least 8,000 in my savings. Im pretty proud of that because i fear any kind of program from the government. Governments at going to have control over us. Theyll come back on us. I just what saddens me is to see that nobody has any kind of cushion or savings in case of Something Like this thats going on. My parents taught me when i was young about saving and saving, thank god they did. Im not going after any of these programs because i just feel they are going to come back at us. People should start saving from now on. Host you called on the line that said you received aid, is that the case . Caller yes, i did. But i they sent me 1200. But then again with my business last year i sent in every quarter 1700. Ok. I got a little gift from them. The thing is people have got to start saving from now on. We cant be dependent on the government. If youre dependent on them theyll have control over you eventually. We have to really start saving for ourselves. Even 25 a week. Throughout the year. It adds up to thousands. So you have this cushion of your own. And not such a dependent. Im glad that people can get assistance. But it seems like they are having a hard time getting it. Anything from the government is i dont know. Its just awful. Host thomas in vermont sharing his experience. This is sam in wildwood, georgia, texting us this morning. Saying it took about three weeks but the i. R. S. Website finally showed date of may 1. My wife should get one on may 5. Glad things got sorted out. Rebecca from twitter saying, my sis is giving her stimulus money to her kids who have been unemployed during this pandemic. And then lisa saying essential workers should not have gotten stimulus money. Only those hit financially should have gotten aid. Lets hear the experience of thomas in the bronx, new york. Good morning. Caller good morning. Thanks so much for taking my call. I just wanted to say that i received my stimulus packet for myself, my one child, and my wife, 2900. April 15. Expediently. I also received a tax refund about a month or so beforehand. I took that money and i put it on the stock market and that money has almost doubled. There is a lot of wealth being created right now if you can learn if you are able to take advantage of the moment. It doesnt have to be suffering for everybody. Theres plenty of people still getting rich right now unfortunately. Host did you need the money in order to help survive during this time . Or are you working . How is that situation for you . Caller absolutely i am still working. I only make 21 an hour and i have a family of three delug myself. Including my sefment thats tufment definitely the government assistance was helping me. Host are you getting state assistance as well . Caller im not dont know. I dont think so. Host tell us about that since you are in new york in the bronx, whats experience like . We know this is a hot spot thats what we hear all the time. Whats it like living there in the bronx . Caller initially people werent really taking the social distancing serious. I guess when the coronavirus when the reports got serious about the comfort coming to new york i guess it basically kind of just made it more serious. I guess people started taking it more serious. Now you see people on the street taking it more seriously. Sanitizing, not spitting, shaking hands. Host Forbes Magazine tells you four myths about the stimulus check. You can find it online at forbes. Com. Myth number one, sign up or register for your stimulus check. The truth, if you have direct deposit set up with the i. R. S. Its automatic. If youre not sure check out the tool from the i. R. S. Number two, youll pay taxes on your check. The truth, you wont owe taxes and no chances the money can pum bump you up in the next tax bracket. The only exception if you are behind on child support. Myth number three, to have pay your stimulus back. The truth, the stimulus checks are an advance on a tax credit not a loan or refund on this years taxes. Its just coming your way early. If you didnt qualify with last year or year before return, your imcome is impacted now you could qualify next year. This is a credit for next year technically. Myth number four, you might have to return t the truth, nope. Say you call fide in 2018 but not 2019, they arent going to ask for it back. Pinky swear. Thats the column you can find the top four midst about the check. Thats at forbes website. To sheila. As bury park, new jersey asbury park, new jersey caller can you hear he . Host yes. Caller i have direct deposit and i am on Social Security. But i have been told it may be a reason why you dont get your check because i havent gotten it yet is that because i get assistance from my daughter. Some help from my dirt s that one of the reasons i might not receive it . I havent gotten it yet. What are the reasons you wont get a stimulus check . Host there are a vaite of reasons. I would invite you to go to the i. R. S. Website and check those things out for yourself only because they have all the information there about these Economic Impact payments as they are known as. But you can find out the whies and why nots there at the website. From san diego, dave, good morning. Caller good morning. I just want to make a comment. I saw on the call that said essential workers should not get stimulus checks. I felt that way, too, that i work in the medical field. You know what, dont feel guilty because you are still putting your health at risk. And we are working hard every day trying to do the right thing for everybody thats not working. I just want to throw that out. Thank you very much for cspan. Its great to hear. Host you called in our line for requesting aid. Could you talk a little bit that . What kind of aid you requested . Are you just waiting on the stimulus check . Are there their sources you are looking senate caller not yet. Just the federal stimulus money. I hate to call it stimulus. We all pay for it. But unemployment, no. Because we went to we lost some hours. It i used my teaching etirement. E do need to phase more. Testimony we come to a little bit of money here and there to make some savings. Im sure there are some people that dont have that ability. I think a lot of this can come back on nonessential items and stuff like that. Host thats dave in san diego sharing his experience there. We have done this for the past halfhour. Well continue on until 8 00. If you want to let us know if you have either requested state or federal Financial Aid during the pandemic, maybe you received it. If you have requested it call us at 2027488,000. You received Financial Aid, 202748811 one. You have heard a variety of people talking about their experience whether its the i. R. S. Website or stimulus check or the Paycheck Protection Program you can explore those avenues, perhaps their others you are looking to as well. Whether being an individual or Small Businessperson or what have you. Text us your experience at 2027488003. Dion, good morning. Black hills, south carolina. Next up. Caller is my stimulus check coming . Host so have you checked the website . Caller yes, sir. Host what has it told you . Geter im not requested to one. Host ok. Again all that information is dont want to give any false information i would refer to you the website or the i. R. S. Call. I know can you call in some cases, too. There are numbers available there. There are a lot of people facebooking us and texting us. You can do the same. It was yesterday, though, one of the topics that came up during a forum with President Trump and the floridas governor ron desantis. He was asked about Financial Aid to states and what the federal government is proposing and doing. Heres some of that exchange from yesterday. President trump, Congress Comes back next week. Let me try toer if rhett out the elephant in the room here potentially if there is an elephant in the room. What about the idea of aid to states . Governor, what do you think of this idea from capitol hill, washington, sending money to individual states who may be suffering severely through lost revenues and picking up a lot of the tab. President trump a big difference with a state that lost money because of covid and a state thats been run very badly for 25 years. Theres a big difference in my opinion. We have to talk about things like payroll tax cuts. Wed have to talk about things like sanctuary cities as an example. I think sanctuary cities has to be brought up. Where people that are criminals are protected. They are protected from prosecution. I think that has to be done. I think its one of the problems that the states have. I dont even think they know they have a problem. But they have a big problem with it. The sanctuary city situation. Wed have to talk a lot of Different Things. But we are certainly open to talking, but it would really have to be covid related not related for mismanagement over a long time. Long period of time. You make that distinction . President trump its a very simple distinction to make. We are not looking to do a bailout for a state thats been its unfair to many of the states, most of the states that have done such a good job. Host from twitter, Elaine Dunlap writes this morning saying i had great luck with the i. R. S. Site. Even my s. S. I. Recipient housemate got information and the state to expect the money. She adds that my heart goes out to Small Businesses. The struggle is everyones struggle. We depend on them so much. In the world of politics, particularly in congress, it was announced yesterday that the house of representatives initially saying they would come back monday now pushing that date until late may. The senate expected to come back to work on monday. Jim mcgovern is the democrat, he represents massachusetts, second congressional district. An oped in the Washington Post about the work of congress and how that should change at least to him. We need to change how congress operates. He writes this morning, members frequently travel from their home state, some ofry are coronavirus virus hot spots, to convene in the close quarters of the capitol complex. They travel back home at the end of the week and repeat the process month after month. This routine could expose not only our colleagues but our staffs and the general public. Its no secret members of congress have varying varying degrees of knowledge with the technology. We can do remote voting by approximate will i and evolve as ease into this crisis. I am neat suggesting in any way changing the way we operate op a daily routine basis, only during extraordinary emergencies such as the one we are facing now. What we are talking about should be the exception not the norm. More thoughts from representative mcgovern available if you go to the Washington Post website. Sandra, sugarland, texas. Next up. Sandra in sure garland, texas. Hello. Caller hello. I was just going to say can you hear me . I just wanted to say i received my stimulus check and a lot of my friends did, too. But the thing that concern me is that my mom and dad never received their stimulus check. They have the same bank that i do. They definitely filed their taxes and they are not working right now. Im an essential workers. I work in Renewable Energy so i still go to work every day. But they dont. They are the ones that im most concerned about because they still have my brother and sister to take care of. And im doing everything that i can, but aim just very concerned about them. And how this is affecting them. Host do you know or not if they receive Social Security . That might impact things as well . Caller they dont. They are not receiving Social Security. They are both not old enough. Host if i may ask you, you describe yourself as an essential worker. We have had a couple people comment on the fact about essential workers receiving aid in the first place. Some questioning that. What do you think about that . Caller i think that we definitely do still need to receive aid because even though i am an essential work other and working, they cut my hours. Im probably doing 20 to 30 hours a week. But it is necessary work. Im definitely helping with a whole bunch of stuff in my sector. And there are things that need to be done so we could move forward. There is no doubt about that. It just worries me because we also have bills. Thats understandable, but we cant just say that one side deserves more money than the other side. We all work and we all need to be able to make money to pay our bills. What im saying is that i feel scared for the people who havent gotten their stimulus check or who arent working at all in the first place because they stand to lose a lot of their aspects. Thats what im concerned about right now. Host talk a little bit about your work. You are working in energy . Caller yes. Im working in Renewable Energy. I help with the solar panels and the Wind Turbines they are building all over the state. Host have you noticed any dropoff or changes in your industry . I know its early as far as the pandemic is concerned. If you noticed anything . Caller yes. I definitely notice a lot of things. We are definitely the not hiring as many labor definitely not hiring as many laborers. Usually when i work i go to a certain small town, i stay there and bunker there for a while and i get a whole bunch of work done. We survey the site. But now there is definitely going to slow down because we are not trying to hire as many people. We are still doing social distancing of. Everyone is basically squared away to their own office. We are constantly wiping everything down. The work still needs to be done because we have these contracts. Host darlene joins us from fargo, north dakota. Says shes requested aid. Good morning. Caller good morning. Host you are on, go ahead. Caller i received my stimulus check. I was wondering if i could get help for the hospital bill . Host i would only advise you to talk to the state and local leaders there perhaps the website itself. What kind of hospital help do you need . Caller i had an operation then and they my insurance paid most of it. Ut theres 3,614 that i dont have that i need to pay. Host will you use some of the money you received from the federal government to pay that . Caller yes. Host le only thing i would advise you may want to check your states and localities for any assistance programs they may be able to offer on that front. Aside from what i might be able to find out from the federal government, too. To the topic of testing, a couple of stories this morning. This is the Washington Post talking about the number of cases topping one million in the United States. Adding that the testing rate according to analysis below average saying that the number of coronavirus tests performed per 1,000 people in the United States is below the average of the 36 Member States of the organization for Economic Cooperation and development. Thats according to figures released tuesday. The United States had conducted 16. 4 tests per 1,000 people compared to iceland at the top of the list which had tested 135 people per 1,000. The United States was behind the o. C. E. Oecd average. And spain, the country with the second highest number, u. S. Testing per capita was roughly half of that of italys that the oecd found and italy has the third number of confirmed cases after the United States and spain. Thats in the Washington Post. The post also talks about the lethality rate of whats happening with coronavirus. Saying that the crude case fatalities rates covering people who have the diagnosis have been about 6 globally as well as in the United States, but when all the certificateo logical data is compiled and analyzed, it could be less than 1 . As Infectious Disease experts point out, even a seemingly low rate can translate into a shockingly large death toll if the virus spreads to major portion of the population. Thats the Washington Post. If you go to one more, the New York Times, it talks about swedens experience with dealing with the coronavirus. The headlines saying that its lenient limits reflect the culture of trust. While other countries were slamming on the brakes. Sweden stayed open. And placed no limits on public prorgs or outings in parks. Hairdressers, yoga studios, gyms, and some cinemas have remained open. Gatherings of more than 50 people are banned. Museums have closed and sport being events have been canceled. At the end of march the authorities bansed visits to nursing homes. Thats t there are almost no fines and Police Officers can only ask people to oblige. Pedestrians Wearing Masks are generally stared at as if they just lanted from mars. Thats in the new york just landed from mars. Thats in the New York Times. For the experience of those requesting or receiving aid from state and federal governments during this time from shreveport, louisiana. Melody, hello. Youre next. Caller first time caller. Im melody, i work in the Health Care Field. Im really saying i received my stimulus check right off the bat. I have been working in this state Health Care Field since 1969. I file my state tax, federal tax. The check came right away. But the main thing that im saying is that we need to get people back to work. I work at the hospital. We need helpers now because a loft them have gotten sick. But my main thing is that you need to put the people back to work everywhere. I think they are doing a good job. I think trump has done a very good job. In trying to put things back together. Our governor, our mayors, and things need to work with him. Put the people back to work. Everybody i talked to in my field wants all of their kinds. I have grandkids, i have my kids, and great grandkids. And they all need to go back to work. Host your governors job, bel edwards, whats the proposal as far as reopening business . Caller hes only opened a few of them. Kind of like the mayor governor down in texas. And hes opening his. We need to open hours. John bel is Still Holding back in trying to open the Health Care Field. I dont think thats right. The main hot spot is down in new orleans. Down that way. We are more up north towards texas. Host as a Health Care Worker do you consider yourself overwhelm if these businesses are allowed to reopen there could be a bump up in cases. Caller yes. Even in our hospital we have slowed down. We closed two floors, moved people around. We are putting people now we opened a new hospital on the other end in order to open several floors. We dont have all the booming like we did before with the coronavirus. We have cut back. They really just kind of respiratory. They are not even on the ventilators as much as now. We are treating them. I think thats the main thing. If you treat the people, dont put them on the ventilators as much, treat them like the doctors are saying what they ask you to treat them with. Everythings doing good here in shreveport. Other than this we need to hope the economy back up. John bel is dragging his foot. I think he needs to let the people go back to work. People, they dont want to receive money. They want to go back to work. Host melody in shreveport talking about the experience not only with her federal experience but state leadership who as far as the reopening businesses. From washington state, jay, next up in eatonville. Caller good morning. Host hi. Caller i did receive my stimulus check. My problem is i live up in the cascade mountains. The internet here is shoddy. Intermittant at best. You can get no bars, then two minutes later you have about four. And its just frantic. I cannot seem to get my unemployment checks. I have not gotten one yet. I have been home because of covid since last day i worked was march 3. I have been sheltering in place ever since. I try and try and try on the phone every morning multiple times. Every afternoon multiple times. Every evening multiple times to call in. And the lines are always busy. I have been online. They keep asking for more information. Even the drop down boxes dont have the answer that i need to be giving. Theres no correct answer. I choose as closely as possible o what i think it should be. I still have not received an unemployment check. My debts are mounting. I have companies, my car company and Mortgage Company are willing to work with me. My Electric Company and phone company. But i know that when this is over and governor inslee totally lifts the bans, i will be required to pay that. The debts arent going away. People we are just being given some extra time to pay them. Host if i may ask for the money you are getting, you dont have to be specific, will you use it for just daytoday Living Expenses or debt retirement . To you howe do you plan to use that . Caller i plan to use it to pay my daytopay my monthly bills. Electric, phone. Cable. Its not cable, its satellite. Just to pay my regular bills. Im barely making it as it is. Im retired. But i went back to work. I went back to work because i needed to go back to work. There were some Health Issues of my sons that cost me all my retirement. Hes going to be ok and i would gladly spend the money again. However i am now having to go back to work when i thought i would be on retirement and be retired. Get to go do things. I dont know what i thought id go do. I need this money. I have to have this money to pay my bills. Im not getting through to them. When i do get through, they are the it screen freezes up. Dont know whether its too many people trying to apply at the same time. I cant call them. Atrying really hard. Like i said i have been unemployed since the third of march. Im not getting any anywhere with the unemployment. Is there another route i could take other than host i would only ask you to examine the avenues federal or statewide. Dont want to give advice because i would probably be wrong. Thank you for sharing your experience with us. Especially at this time. From our texting service, anna from texas says i dont begrudge any essential worker getting an extra 1200. They deserve every bit of it. Every one of us on Social Security got t we were not impacted at all by the virus. Not financially. She adds, thank you, President Trump. Again texting you can do at 2027488003. If you wish, if you wouldnt mind include your city and state. That way your name, city, state, that way we can identify who you are and where you are calling from. Phillip, good morning. Urbana, illinois. Caller yes, sir. You just mentioned there might have been a hold up on peoples stimulus checks because of Social Security. Im on Social Security disability. Now do i qualify, correct . Host there is a couple of things, i know we have create add couple full screens of those who would receive money under the stimulus program. Maybe we can show them to you as we discussed your experience. Go ahead. Caller my question was, what would be the holdup since im on Social Security . And would i get that on a separate check or would i get with my regular monthly check . Host again. I dont know the answers directly. I would just invite you to go to the website. Many have talked about this morning, their experience particularly with the website. If you go to irs. Gov, thats the website that has all the information regarding who qualifies and what you have to do to qualify or not qualify. So the details are laid out there. I invite you to go check that out. State college, pennsylvania. Rick is next. Caller good morning. Thank you for the opportunity to speak with you. How are you doing . Host well, thank you. How about yourself . Caller great. I was even greater when lo and behold i got my stimulus check on april 15, which of course ironically is the date for to file taxes. I guess speaking of taxes i probably unknowingly put myself in a good position. Last year was the first time i arranged to have my refund direct deposited into my bank account. From what im hearing that was a possible element to expedite the payments. Gratefully i did get it. Im trying to contact my state unemployment office. I have a question i need to ask them. I saw where they said it would take like 24 days just to respond back to my email. So unfortunately particular information stream isnt going to be as fast. Host if i may ask, what are you planning to do with the money . Caller le to tell you the truth i think im going to help someone who is in a little more need than i am. Hopefully thats not taboo. I believe thats what im going to do. Host thats rick in state college, pennsylvania. We told you earlier about that story about typing in your address in all capitals on the i. R. S. Website to see if it gives you any good information as far as when you might receive money. This is from willie in houston, texas. Writing in this morning, saying it worked for him. I have been trying to enter my direct deposit information for weeks and kept getting status not avail afpblet i put in all caps and the direct deposit page pops right up. Unreal, he goes. Says in all gaps. The story we showed you earlier on i think it was forbes Los Angeles Times. The Los Angeles Times is where you can find that story. Larry in tuscaloosa, alabama. Hi. Caller how you doing this morning . I have a question and a comment id like to make. The comment is dealing with the stimulus. Ann from texas said everyone who received Social Security received the stimulus. Thats not true. Matter of fact you say youre going to show the audience how much you need to make a year in order to be eligible for the stimulus. But the question i would like to ask of you, mr. Pedro, if anyone knows, if you go to this website, the i. R. S. Got, and you put in to check my stimulus, well, if you are receiving v. A. Benefits, are you receiving Social Security, if its d. I. , railroad retirement, etc. How can you check it if the website has not been updated . At least for two weeks. You cannot check that log on the i. R. S. Website because they say they havent updated it. I dont know why they havent updated it. People are suffering out here. Some are losing their houses and cars. And soup lines. Different things. Its just getting ridiculous out here. You want to bail out 5 billion to the oil companies. Saudi arabia, russia. I dont get it. We need some help. Host thats larry in alabama sharing his experience. In the world of politics a couple stories to share with you. Jonathan Martin Alexander burns saying that its representative justin amash republican turned independent from michigan saying that yesterday he would explore running for president as a libertarian. Injecting new volatility into a president ial campaign unsettled by the coronavirus. Quote, we are ready for a presidency that will restore respect for our constitution and bring people together. Mr. Amash wrote on twitter. Im excited and honored to take these first steps towards serving americans on every background as president. Then he posted a link to the website for his exploratory committee. Amash for america. You can find out more about his proposals and what he intends to do with as he explores this option at the website. Several people lining up to support joe biden, including exadvisors to bernie sanders. From the New York Times this morning. Saying jeff weaver, mr. Sanders Campaign Manager in 2016 is leading the effort t will focus on mobilizing the base of sanders supporters, young people, liberal, latinos, and quote blue collar progressives. If you go to the picture right to the left of this, an older photo back in 2016 of Hillary Clinton who was then the democratic candidate. And then joe biden lending his support at the time. Those roles have reversed. As of yesterday Hillary Clinton adding her support for joe bidens candycy. The wall street journal takes a look at joe biden, particularly after those allegations that have been made against him of sexual assault, saying Top Democrats stick with biden after allegation. Julie writing that Senators Amy Klobuchar of minnesota and Kamala Harris of california. And Stacey Abrams have all said they respect women making such allegation answer take them seriously but they havent waivered in their support for mr. Biden, the Presumptive Democratic nominee. This campaign is strongly denied the allegations. The Biden Campaign denying the allegations being quoted the Campaign Director saying that the communications director, Vice President biden has dedicated his public life to changing the laws around the violence against women. He fought for the authorization of the landmark violence against women act. He firmly believes women have a right to be heard and respectfully. Such claims should also be diligently reviewed by an independent press. What is clear about this claim it is untrue. Absolutely did not happen. More of that available at the wall street journal. Albert, good morning, fort worth, texas. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Thank you for your show and thank you for taking my call. My wife and i have received our stimulus checks and i believe that the income limits that congress established for receiving the stimulus checks was reasonable. I also have friends who have not filed their 2019 tax return but they also received stimulus checks. My mother is on Social Security. Shes received her stimulus check. Thats pretty much the extent of my comment. Host ok. Marilyn next from south carolina. Hello. Caller hello. Thank you for taking my call. The reason im calling is my son, hes a veteran, and he does not work. Hes on s. S. I. When we tried to check to see what his reasoning was, it says he does not it says that its not available yet. I did put his Social Security number in and everything. He lives by himself. He does have a lot of Health Problems and cannot go out much. We are trying to figure out what should we do . Just keep waiting . Host again the website is probably the best source resource four. Check out the internet for other stories we have showed you regarding those waiting for check released information about when they might receive payment. Mlb from twitter says no stimulus check for us yet. Im sure well eventually get them. Aconcerned about my fellow americans who have not received their unemployment checks. And people having to go back to work before schools open. Who is going to watch their kids . The viewer adds. This is one more call from david. Green river, wyoming. Hello. Caller hello. Host youre on. Caller yeah. The reason im calling, i think the only reason i received my 1200 is because im on Social Security and i had that u. S. Direct deposit. On i. I. S. D of waiting to send me that check, i filed my 2019 taxes and i think that made a bearing on why i received my stimulus check as quick as i did. Is because i did file my 2019 taxes and i looked at as an investment, it cost me 114 to file my taxes. But, however, in the return i got 1200. So i think it was well worth the investment about filing my taxes, even though i dont have to every year. I think thats why host when did you receive the money . Caller i got the money last week. The reason im calling in is because i didnt have to file my taxes, like i havent in years because of milo income. But by doing so, i do believe this is the reason i received that check so quick. Is because i. I. S. Had all my updated information. Host what do you plan to do with it . If i may ask. Caller well, im kind of im oing to try to pay some bills. Host david in wyoming sharing his experience receiving that stimulus check, as many as others have during the course of this hour. Of course one of the questions that goes along with the spending that the federal government has done over the last few weeks in regard to coronavirus is how it impacts the budget, debts and deficits. Joining us next for that conversation, Maya Macguineas of the committee for responsible federal budget, well talk about all those things and answer your questions about it. Later on in the program, well be joined by dr. Robert gallo, the cofounder and director of the institute of human virology at the university of Maryland School of medicine. Hell talk about to essential vaccines and treatments for covid19. It was yesterday that alabama governor kay ivy announced that the stayathome order at the state is now being replaced by a safer at home order. It starts thursday at 5 00 this evening. Heres governor ivy detailing the guidelines. New order. Governor ivy all individuals and especially vulnerable persons are encouraged to exercise partial responsibility in slowing down the spread of covid19 by minimizing travel outside the home. Youll be urged to wear face coverings around people from other households when you leave your house. Obviously no ones going to arrest you if you dont, but its just good, sound medical advice and its for your safety as well as for the safety of those with whom you come in contact. Youre also urged to continue proper hand washing and other commonsense hygiene. All nonworkrelated gatherings of 10 persons or more or nonwork gatherings of any size that cannot maintain a consistent sixfoot distance between persons are prohibited. However, some top level changes in this new order are as follows. Employers should take reasonable steps for employees to avoid gatherings of 10 persons or more , to practice social distancing and make strong efforts to disinfect their office space. Under this less restrictive order, all Retail Businesses will be allowed to open with a 50 occupancy rate and not allow customers to congregate within six feet of one another. Our state beaches will be open, providing people abide by social distancing and the gatherings guidelines. And the mayors of our coastal towns have assured me they will take the lead and be proactive in enforcing the gathering guidelines. Elective medical procedures can resume, if providers take reasonable guidelines from their state regulatory boards or c. D. C. Guidance. Fellow alabamans, let me be abundantly clear. The threat of covid19 is not over. Were still seeing the virus spread and all of our people are susceptible to the infection. The greatest disservice for the people who might be watching me here today is to think that by lifting the comprehensive health restrictions, that this must be a sign that theres no longer a threat of covid19. Folks, we must continue to be vigilant in our social distancing, both today and for the foreseeable future. And i encourage everyone to practice productive teleworking if possible, and be as innovative as you can, as you open your workplaces. Ensure youre taking every precaution while getting back to work. Its certainly been a challenging month, for sure. But better days are ahead of us, im sure of that. And i just want to thank the people of alabama for being disciplined and patient as we move into what i hope will be a better season for our state. Announcer washington journal continues. Host well we welcome back to the program Maya Macguineas. Shes the president of the fix the debt campaign. To talk about federal spending in light of coronavirus. Maya macguineas, thanks for coming back on. Guest nice to be with you. Host new numbers from the congressional budget office. Ill give you the top line, maybe youll fill in the blanks with your opinion saying that for Fourth Quarter in 2020, real Gross Domestic Product is expected to be 5. 6 lower than the Fourth Quarter of 2019 and the Unemployment Rate is expected to average 15 in the second and third quarters of 2020. Thats the top line, as an economist, you study this, what does that mean to you . Guest this is a really serious moment that we are in. We know that. We know that the pandemic is incredibly serious. And we know what people are going through and the overall economy is incredibly serious. These numbers are going to be huge declines in overall growth. And importantly, in employment. And the big question is, how quickly are begoing to be able to return to normal . I think theres something thats really important to point out about this huge session. Obviously the pandemic was not something that was planned or anticipated in the moment where it came along. The recession that were in the midst of is something that was basically part of a policy response. We had to say, in order to keep people from getting infected with this virus, were basically going to shut down the economy. Stop production, stop consumption in many ways. And that explains these massive numbers. But it doesnt make it any less painful. And theres both real hardship thats going on on the individual level and theres real questions about how quickly well be able to turn the economy around and get things up and running again once its safe to do so. No sugar coating it. This is a scary and painfulful moment for the country and the world. Host one other figure to give you from the c. B. O. Projection, if current laws dont change the federal deficit will be 3. 7 trillion for 2020. 2. 1 trillion in 2021. Guest then theres that. Thats right. So i run the committee for responsible federal budget. I spend most of my time worrying about the Fiscal Health of the country. And this is a very tricky moment that were in. So let me kind of lay out all of the responses or how one might feel about the National Deficit and debt. Prior to this emergency, our country [indiscernible] about 1 trillion a year is what we were about to hit. It was a big policy mistake that we were borrowing money because the economy was strong and it was a multiyear expansion. Exactly the period of time you would want to be fiscally responsible. Paying for your spending, if youre cutting taxes youd want to offset that with spending cuts or other revenues. We didnt do that. We just borrowed basically for everything. For a number of years, building up to this emergency. That was something we were warning about on your show, many places. I think it left us in a very dangerous position. Now, fast forward to where we are right now. National emergency. This is in fact the time you would want to borrow. We have huge eyepopping numbers. The deficit and debt are going to grow like we have never seen before. Again, for somebody who worries about the fiscal situation, that doesnt sit well with me. But it is the right moment to be borrowing because its what we need to do to compensate for the fact that the economy has basically been shut down. But the third piece of all that. Bad borrowing when the economy is strong, but appropriate that were borrowing now when its in such a weak condition. Very important that once the economy recovers, and we dont know when, but we do know that it will will at some point, its very important that we then turn our attention back to actually getting the debt back under control. We didnt do that after our last recession. We borrowed in recessions we should have, but we never got the debt back down. This time we need to take that third step because we have three big challenges. Health Care Challenge and economic challenge and a debt challenge. And were going to have to take all of them headon. Host if the deficit, the 3. 7 trillion in 2020, is that attributed to an economy being restored or restoring . Guest that is attributed to not many further problems. Thats a reasonably optimistic situation. So it asumes the economy will start to recover, though not bounce back to perfection. And it does not assume that there will be numerous additional packages to fight the down turn. And thats the way that c. B. O. Does their numbers, thats the way we do our numbers. We dont put in place assumptions about further policy actions. But it is certainly looking like there may have to be further packages. Those debt numbers, if anything, are likely to be optimistic. Because i think that we dont know how quickly the economy will recover. But my guess is we will have to borrow more to keep it on track. Let me point out that those huge deficit numbers reflect two things. They reflect all the borrowing that were doing to fight the pandemic and the recession. And they also reflect the fact that the revenues to this country, both the states and federal level, are basically dropping out. Because nobody is bringing in the money, they normally would from work. Taxes will be much, much lower. And to a strong extent as well, spending will be higher because of a lot of programs that kick in when the economy is weak. So those are both automatic changes that happen in a down turn, and policy responses that we have enacted to help fight the down turn. Host this is our guest, Maya Macguineas, here to talk about the spending thats going on during the pandemic at the federal level. If you want to ask her questions about it, you can do so in the eastern and central time zones, phone 06789 and mountain and phone 80. Ountain and pacific at 2027488003. Does it surprise you this has been a bipartisan effort to spend this kind of money . Caller as a political independent who spend as lot of time bemoaning the state of politics and how polarized we are, it is very welcome to see the two parties working so well together. And the fact that we with the speed that we got out, these original stimulus bills and measures, i thought was critical and i think they did a really good job. And theres no way that 2 trillion spending bills will be perfect. There will certainly be waste and money that wasnt targeted well. But i think they came together really in the face of emergency and did what needed to be done to get those that money out quickly and for the most part structured in a really good manner. And i hope, i very much hope we can build on that bipartisanship. Two caveats, though. It is often easier to be bipartisan when we are borrowing money than when we are paying for things. In the past years weve seen bipartisan policymaking when, for instance, lawmakers busted through spending caps and added trillions to the debt. So we have seen bipartisanship when the model is, i dont want to pay for it, i also dont want to pay for it, ok, we can all vote for something not paying for it. In this moment thats what we should have done. We should not have paid for it. We should not be worried about paying for it in the short term. And the bipartisanship was very welcome. But that is a lot easier than what were going to need to see down the road. And this is critical. Were going to need to see bipartisan acknowledgment that at some point well have to deal with the trillions of dollars that weve borrowed so that its not a huge weight on the economy. And were going to have to have some bipartisan cooperation on how you would deal with that. To put out the realities, again, this is not what we need to think about now. But we will as a third step of fighting the economic situation, the debt situation. We will have to look at all the parts of our budget, our annual deficits are going to be huge and our accumulated debt is going to be record breaking. And we are going to need to lock at both spending programs andriev knews to figure out how we close the gap once the economy is strong. Will that be able to be bipartisan . Im not as confident. But out of massive challenges, and this really is one for the country, it is an opportunity for lawmakers and citizens to stop focusing on all the divides that have been really plaguing us as a country for the past years, and instead focus on what this country does really well, which is theres a huge challenge, lets take it headon and lets fight this. Hoping for bipartisanship throughout this and i worry when i hear people talking about republican this, democratic that, too much. Instead of, these are the policies that we have to think about how to tut in place to fight some really huge challenges that we are facing right now. Host if you speak that way, im sure people will think, well, theres a discussion about possibly cutting Social Security or medicare, medicaid, or along those lines. But some of those programs are the ones you talk about as far as spending is concerned, that are the most concerning. Guest yeah. As soon as you talk about any of the stuff that i tend to do in my work, which is how you pay for things, you will have people very upset because thats not the conversation they want to have. They dont want to talk about the fact that we need to talk about Social Security or medicare and they dont want to talk about the fact that we need to raise taxes. And those are both just the truth. If i could take a moment on them. Social security, we just saw this last week, the trustees came out with the numbers about these programs. Social security and parts of medicare have made promises that exceed the amount of money that will come into the trust fund, including what is owed to those trust funds. And therefore we dont have a plan to pay for all of these benefits. What i really dont understand, and i think its because our politicians make things so polarizing on these tough issues instead of explaining them, theres really no way to not acknowledge that Social Security and parts of medicare need fixes. Weve made promises, we dont have the money to pay for them. We have to figure that out. Now, there are a lot of options to do that. You could do that by cutting Social Security benefits. You could do that by raising taxes. You could do that by a combination of the two. So while i dont think theres anyplace for disagreement that we need to address these programs, because the longer we wait, the more painful the solutions will be and the more they will hurt the people who depend on them. Theres plenty of room to disagree about how we fix them. So for Social Security, we could fix it by raising the payroll tax cap, the payroll tax rate, putting other revenues into it. We could fix it by raising the retirement age. Changing the benefit calculation. We could fix it by the way that i think most people who have studied it think we should which is a combination of a bunch of those things. With a special eye on protecting people who depend on the programs. But we cant pretend we dont have to. And i could go into the same piece on taxes. Just for a moment, weve been cutting taxes in the past years while weve been growing spending. That doesnt make sense. If you want a Smaller Government, its not the way you get there. You get a Smaller Government by cutting spending. If you are cutting taxes but growing spending, youre just not paying for all the Big Government you have. So thats not really in keeping with what a lot of conservatives might want. So you have a lot of problems and basically i think this boils down to less about the policy, because these are programs we can figure out how to fix them and get our revenues up and we can do it in smart ways, but this is about politics. Where its a lot easier for our elected officials to talk about giving us things. But never about how we would pay for those things. That leads us to the situation where we were in going into this emergency where our debt was dangerously high, near record levels, and not because it had been borrowed for sound investments to expand the economy. Not because it had been borrowed for massive emergencies. But it was borrowed because we didnt want to pay for the things we want to spend money on. And that is not how you strengthen an economy, thats now how you enter emergencies prepared for them and its not how you stay a strong and great economy, which is one of the things that drives our concerns, which is you need to have a sound policy about borrowing so you can borrow when you need to like now, because you havent been squandering all of that borrowing. Just because you didnt feel like paying the bills which is really whats happened for so many years around our federal budget. Host Maya Macguineas joining us for this conversation. Our first call from peter in valley cottage, new york. Youre on with our guest. Go ahead. Caller thank you. Good morning. Maya, ive been watching you on washington journal for years now. Theres two points id like to make. Number one, i agree with you. Ive read several books on the subject. And i think i know quite a bit about it. But the problem is that if this has to be treated like climate change. Where the media and academia and our politicians are all onboard educating the public on the dangers of borrowing. And until that happens, nothings going to change. Theres a lot of politicians and there are a lot of people in the media who seem to ignore this. They seem to think that the federal government is answer endless pot of money. And also, im confused because it used to be if the government printed too much money it created inflation. Now the federal reserve, since ben bernanke, since 2008, whatever debt, whatever Treasury Bonds they generate to give money to the federal government, they buy them. And they keep Interest Rates artificially low. And there are many economists ive heard who seem to think that you can just do this forever. Host ok, peter. Lets leave your thoughts there. Well let our guest respond to that. Guest those were great points. Clearly i think you do know this issue really well and i agreed with all those points. Let me start in the beginning. This is a lot like climate in so many ways. Ill say some additional ways beyond what you said. Not only do we definitely need our political leaders in kind of a nonscare mongering way, but to lay out the facts, this is not a grassroots issue. We have members, we have people who care about this issue. But it is never going to come from the bottom up. Because it is so hard for people to see how the National Debt effects their daily lives. Even though it does throughout the economy. But this is an issue where we need our political leaders to explain what the facts are, we need to start with a real understanding, theres something called the fiscal state of the nation, an idea out there that you can have somebody come and talk to congress and the public every year about the Fiscal Health of the country. I think thats a really good idea. But lay out those numbers. And then you need them to tell the truth about what the options are for fixing it. Because we have people promising all kinds of fairy dust when it comes to dealing with the ational debt and its just not true and it causes us to dig the hole deeper. I think its like climate in another way too. Its a longterm promise, more a mediumterm problem now. But theres no moment, theres no moment where suddenly this whole this explodes. Theres not going to be a debt crisis because we borrow on our own currency. More a chipping away at the foundation of the economy or a foundation of the climate. So every year things get a little bit worse, you dont know when the Tipping Point is, and theres nothing built into our policy structures that forced us to act. And so i think that that is a huge challenge in an era where politicians would rather focus on easier things than harder things. Theres nothing that makes them either educate the public about this or really take active measures. So i agree with that point completely. Second. On your point on the fed. Im right there with you. Our macroenvironment has changed dramatically in the past years, decades, in ways that we would not have predicted. And two of those big issues are Interest Rates have come steadily down and there are much, much lower than anybody certainly than i would have thought and most experts would have thought they would ever be in the face of huge deficits like we have. Part of that reason is because weve been able to borrow so much more from other countries, lots of them lend to the u. S. , particularly in times when they are worried about the state of global economy. And its also due to the fact that the federal reserve, through multiple crises now, have employed new measures where it is buying a lot of the debt and that is presumably helping to keep Interest Rates down. And then theres also this issue of inflation has not gone up, despite all of that. I dont believe that people understand everything thats going on yet. You read a lot of different explanations, thoughts. But the one thing that i think is very dangerous is to assume, oh, Interest Rates are low, inflation is low, theyll never go up again. And many of us are people who have not experienced hyperinflation, gone through some of these real moments where on the other side of the economy you see the incredible damage it does as it ravages the economy, to have high levels of inflation that eat away at peoples wealth or make things inaccessably expensive at a fast rate. High Interest Rates that mean your economys going to slow down, youre less able to control the economy during the ebbs and flows or ups and downs of the business cycle. And i am concerned on the other side of this. I think the fed has done a very good job, but i think we are in uncharted territory and it is hard to explain all of those dynamics. Im glad youre reading books about the National Debt. And i agreed with your points. Host from michigan, this is bob. Caller yes, hi. How are you doing . I just want to tell you ive been a 24 7 caregiver for my parents for seven years and three months. Hat is 377 weeks ive been selfquarantined. So when these people cry about having to stay in for four or five weeks, get over it. This has become the christmas virus. People making more money on unemployment than when they were working. I have two people in my family that are deceased that received 1200 checks. Called the financial advisor, he checked into it, he said the checks did not have to be returned. Sort of curious on how many other millions of people deceased received these checks. This virus has exposed the people who have mismanaged their money for years. You cant spend more than you make. Its your fault you cant pay your bills. Not the governments. This is sick. The governments shouldnt give any business or any person a dime over this. Thats my comment. Have a good day. Host Maya Macguineas, go ahead. Guest ok. Two main points. One, it is nearly impossible, and youre giving some examples that demonstrate this, to target a 2 trillion, 2 trillionplus spending bill thats crafted and put together in basically days out of necessity because youre in a crisis, it is nearly impossible to target that so theres not mistargeting, mismanagement, funds going to the wrong places. Youve given some of those examples and there are of course many. And well continue to hear about them. I think it is important i think theres two sides of that. Its really important to try to not waste a single dollar of taxpayer money. Right . This is just because were spending trillions doesnt mean that any check isnt important. We should not be wasting money, we should do our best to figure out how you are able to design and provide benefits in the most efficient, fair, not open to fraud kind of way. The second piece of this, though, i think, is so many people, and theres tremendous hardship that is going through here and im so sorry for what you have been doing in terms of caring for your parents and that is hard, theres a lot of hardship that was created through this economic down turn where people were doing everything they were supposed to be doing. They were going to their jobs, they were saving their money, they were bringing their kids to school. And suddenly the word and it is the appropriate one is stop what youre doing go home and stay there. So for a lot of people who were working as they were supposed to, saving the best they could, theyre not going to have the rainy day funds to weather six weeks of a shutdown economy, much longer i think its going to go. It only makes sense that the government would have to create a lot of bridges from the previous Strong Economy to once we get out of here. And thats how i try to think about. This the best thing we can do, how can we create as many bridges so people get through this without hardship and the economy is poised for a strong and quicker recovery as possible . There are many lessons from every crisis, there will be from this. I think one of these will be how you think about how you respond to all these different crises. And we know there are many that are out there. Theres natural disasters, theres pandemics, theres terrorism, theres all sorts of Different Things that we should be thinking about how you respond to them and have plans ahead of time as best as possible. One that i think has surfaced through this is how you get money directly to people, i know the caller is saying thats not what you want to do, but that is going to be a response. How do you get money to people, because there are many people unbanked, not connect, and getting those checks through the mail, paper versions of them prove to take a very, very long time, often to the people who need them the most. And so thinking about what kind of digital connectivity well need for currency and for benefits, im sure will be one of the things that we will contemplate as we move out of emergency crisis and into what are lessoned learns stage. Host a quick story from Steve Mnuchin yesterday saying that when it comes to the money going to the deceased, that money should be returned. Theyre checking databases that would help track those payments. Perry is next from maryland. Good morning. Thanks for calling. Youre on. Caller yes. First of all, let me thank cspan and your guest who has been appearing there at least for 10 or 12, 14 years. And shes really a national asset. Because shes so well informed and the explanations shes given so far have been great. I do have two quick questions. The answers may be difficult. But anyway. One is the fed is just doing things theyve never done before. They never paid back the 4 trillion from the last crisis 10 years ago. And you begin to wonder now, the only thing they havent done, and i saw in the paper today theyre planning to do even more, not make accountable people who are borrowing money from, you know, theyre providing money to, but i guess basically the feds expansive involvement beyond anything theyve done before, and what are the consequences of that . And who the benefit goes to . And then the second question is, at what point does the dollar begin to lose its value its dominance in the World Economy . I guess theyre the two questions. I know theyre both pretty require pretty extensive answers but i do think theyre at the bottom of all of this. Because eventually americans are going to have to pay for this. Thank you very much. Guest well, thank you for your kind words. And thank you sort of for your really tough questions. Because those are kind of at the center of all of this. We are entering the unknown. On one hand i agree that the fed has had to take extraordinary measures, we are in a very difficult situation where for the fed to respond there is no playbook for this. And i will say one of the problems that we have right now is that we have so much National Debt that when the fed contemplates raising Interest Rates as it was before going into this, so before this crisis our Interest Rates were still quite low. And there was a lot of debate and discussion whether rates should be higher or not. One the reasons so when we got hit with the next crisis, this one, we would have Interest Rates as a better tool to help manage the economy. Along with some of these other extraordinary measures like purchasing treasuries. But when your debt is as large as ours is, raising Interest Rates means a massive uptick in interest payments. So despite the fact that the fed doesnt focus on the budget deficit so much, its not trying to fix it, it is aware of it and it is aware that that is a real drag on the economy. In some ways the failure of our policymakers to enact smart fiscal policy has added significant pressure onto the fed and monetary policymakers in terms of how they respond and deal with all of these competing parts of the economy. The economy is like a balloon, right. If you push on it in one place, it has ripple effects throughout the other places. Thats why managing it is so difficult. When you think about where this is headed, i just dont know. I just dont know if well be able to extract ourselves from the situation of this much money on the feds Balance Sheet relatively painlessly or whether its going to be a very difficult to do to do very difficult to do. Its hard to play out that scenario. I do think theres a really real risk that the u. S. Doesnt remain the safe haven or the currency that everybody wants to buy in and trade in or the asset that people want to purchase when the economy turns down. I do think theres a real risk that we dont remain in that place certainly forever, and troublingly, for very much longer. Because we are making enough policy mistakes. Other economies would like to be the premier currency and i think youll see pressure from other countries, china certainly is one which you have to think about, as their economy grows in size and strength. A final point i want to make is, this issue of transparency and oversight is huge. Knowing how these dollars are spent, where they are spent, tracking them is incredibly important. Because there has to be the understanding that there is going to be as much accountability as possible. Back to that previous callers point. Sending checks to dead people, never good policy. You dont want that to be happening. We need to learn from these mistakes and figure out how to fix them. But transparency and accountability are key to all of this. I will give a plus for a really neat new product that we have Just Launched last week. Covid19 money tracker which is on the website as the committee for responsible federal budget. We will be tracking in as much granular detail as possible, all of the action of congress, all of the executive actions of the white house, the actions of the federal reserve, and well look how much money is allocated, where it is going to and we will keep track of that throughout the years. This will be a multiyear program. So that when we hopefully have moved on and life feels back to normal, its still important to understand how those dollars went out, what worked, where the mistakes were, how to do all that again. And this is all modeled after a program we did last economic crisis called stimulus. Org which got a lot of attention and i think people found very usele useful. It is on our website now but were in the process of building an interactive database. Look at it, use it, but come back in a couple weeks because its going to be it there will be as many bells and whistles as we can figure out how to put on there, but a central database so people can track this data. Because that oversight and accountability is critical, particularly when youre throwing trillions of dollars into the economy like we are. Host crfb. Org. That money tracker that our guest spoke about, Maya Macguineas of the committee for a responsible federal budget. In which is he serves as president. Shes also the president of the fix the debt campaign. A viewer off of twitter, this is john saying which is the greater threat, the debt or even more massive unfunded liability . Guest those are very interrelated. The unfunded liabilities are huge promises of spending programs down the road. That you dont put aside money to pay for. So we have massive unfunded liabilities in our Social Security and medicare programs and our pension programs. Basically i think of those again as interrelated. So the debt is how much we have borrowed much its very transparent. We know about it. Unfunded liabilities often arent reported nearly as transparently because they can be changed. So one can change the formulas that figure out how much is paid in Social Security or how much goes into it and that will switch the unfunded liability. Whereas the debt is a legal claim that will be repaid, unfunded liabilities reflect promises but those are policy promises that can be altered through law. That was a not helpful explanation, i think. The answer to the callers good question is, i worry about them both. This is what i do. I worry about the fact that in this country there is a political asymmetry, a political pressure to give away things without paying for them. And its not about a reflection of government should be bigger or government should be smaller. Everybody has different points of view on that. That is completely legitimate. The committee for responsible federal budget and our focus on fiscal policy is concerned about the notion that we are not using debt in a way that is good for the economy or good for the next generation. We are instead using it as kind of a cheap way to delay payments for all of the things that are out there. Unfunded liabilities fall into that category completely. I got room to worry about both. I worry about both tremendously and at the moment i worry about how our economy is doing and how were going to get that back on track. So not the debt in the moment, but the fact that the huge debt complicates all the measures we need to take to fix the economy right now as well. Host let me show you another text from a viewer. Tim in rhode island saying, would stopping the payroll tax actually help the deficit . Guest no. That would harm the deficit. So the payroll tax is what funds Social Security and medicare. A lot of times people talk about can you have a payroll tax holiday or break on paying it if you want to stimulate the economy. So its a very good way to get money into peoples pockets if theyre not paying the payroll tax, which is a huge tax on your wages that goes to fund these programs. If you take a break from paying for it when theres a recession, it means suddenly people very earthquakely have more money in their pockets to go out and spend and stimulate the economy. Couple things. One, were not looking for stimulus right now. Oftentimes in a recession youll hear people say, go out and spend money, in fact, my daughter was explaining to me, i made her do research or a on a recession and you what do. She said, i need to spend money at the mall. Thats what a lot of people thats what we do in many recessions. This one is different. In that this is actually a moment where weve told people to stop going out and spending, to hunker down, and to focus on staying safe, not keeping the economy propped up from lots of spending. But either way, which ever kind of down turn you have, so this is very different than a normal down turn where you think about stimulating it by getting money in peoples pockets as a first priority. But we also need money in peoples pockets so they can pay the bills and again theres a lot of hardship. But it does not help the deficit when you have a payroll tax holiday, cut the payroll tax or in fact cut any taxes. It makes the deficit much worse. Because it means the money to pay the governments bills or what were spending on Social Security, medicare, defense, interest payments, all of those things, if were not paying taxes, were not paying for those costs. Thats what makes the deficit larger. When it comes to payroll tax in particular, if you cut it now, it means that you have even fewer revenues coming in which will be there to pay all the benefits that weve promised which brings us back to that previous discussion on that Social Security is going to have to have changes in order to remain solvent and pay everything as promised. But the whole notion that cutting taxes will shrink the deficit its a fairytale. It would be great if it were true but its not. The way you shrink the deficit is you have a Strong Economy, you put in enough revenues to pay for the spending and so you either bring your revenues up, your spending down, or some of both. Thats what well have to think about once we pivot away from fighting the recession at hand, into dealing with the huge mountain of debt that is lying out there as a third challenge for us. Host this is don in new mexico. Go ahead. Caller good morning. Instead of attacking Social Security, which was the result of the great depression, i suggest you read the triumph of injustice. How the rich dodged taxes and ow to make them pay. If you read this, youll understand that the rich the ultrawealthy pay barely 20 . The poor pay more in consumption taxes and state and local levels. Y point to you is, amazon pays zero taxes. Let me say that again. Amazon pays zero taxes. How can a company of that wealth pay zero taxes and you come on this program and attack Social Security . Guest so, let me say, other than describing what im doing as attacking Social Security, which it certainly isnt, i completely agree with your comment. So on Social Security, im not attacking the program. I am telling the numbers as the trustees tell them. Which is we have made promises of Social Security benefits that we dont have sufficient revenues to pay for. It was going to be in the early 2030s that we were no longer to pay for full benefits. And if that happens, there will be automatic cuts in everybodys Social Security benefit, which strikes me as the worst approach to dealing with this program. Because so many people depend on Social Security for their livelihood. And part of being a policymaker is knowing that if something isnt working, you have to fix it, you have to figure out how to close that gap. These are just honest numbers. Go look up the trustees report. It is not a commentary on how we should fix it, as ive said before. There will be lots of different opinions. What we shouldnt do is delay in figuring it because weve made promises that just the revenue to pay for them is not going into the program. Thats just a fact. Now, to your other point. I completely agree. Theres a huge problem in this country of how there is a tax gap which means a lot of money that is owed in taxes doesnt get paid. The bulk of that is through Small Businesses more than big businesses. But that is a significant amount of money. And theres both fraud and mistakes to go on that lead to it. Theres another problem which is our tax code allows for huge and often multinational corporations to have incredibly low tax rates. And this is because our tax code is so complex and theres all sorts of exemptions and deductions. When we did the tax cuts a number of years ago, which we did not support because they werent paid for and they added to the debt, they didnt take that opportunity to clean up the tax base, simplify it, and remedy a lot of the problems, where there are either very wealthy or corporations who arent paying the same effective tax rate as many middle class americans are which strikes many of us as not a good tax system. So i implore listeners, i know when we talk about Social Security, it gets incredibly heated and theres all sorts of accusations that come out there about trying to whack benefits. That is not the case. The case is the trustees have laid out the unfortunate fact that we made promises that are bigger than our revenue base and we need to fix it. And it is fixable and the sooner we work on it, the better. It is not in any way a judgment about this Great Program that was built in 1935 thats helped so many people. Its saying, Great Programs need to have a Strong Foundation so they can do what theyre supposed to do. But to your point about the holes in our tax system, absolutely. We have over 1 trillion a year that arent paid at all because of tax breaks, credits, exemptions, deductions. Theyre called tax expenditures. People love them because it means they can take a lot of tax breaks. But they add complexity and they put holes in the tax code and i would love to see a huge tax overhaul that really looks at how to clean up that tax base so we dont have so many of the mistakes that the caller provided us as sort of examples of where things arent working like they should be. Guest Maya Macguineas with the committee for responsible federal budget joins us. Shes their president , crfb. Org is the website if you want to check out the organization. Also shes the president of the fix the debt campaign. As always, Maya Macguineas, thanks for your time. Guest thank you. Host we will take your comments for the next couple of minutes on this question. Its a new poll thats done in conjunction with u. S. A. Today about the federal government response to the coronavirus pandemic. They put it saying theres too much federal federal government voft, government federal government involvement, too little or just the right amount . 10 saying its too much. 45 saying its too little. 36 saying its the right amount. 9 saying undecided. So when it comes to that response, heres how were phrasing the question when it comes to the response to the coronavirus. Do you think its too much . Give us a call at 2027488000. If you think its too little, 2027488001. Perhaps you think its the right amount and you want to tell us why, 2027488002. You can tweet us thoughts and text us thoughts too. Well take those calls in just a moment. Weve had the chance to talk with many legislators over the last couple of weeks about the coronavirus pandemic. Particularly how it effects their states. Joining us now is representative Bennie Thompson. Democratic from mississippi. He serves as the chair of the Homeland Security committee. Representative thompson, thax for joining us. Guest thank you for having me. Host can we start with your own state, particularly how your governor is handling stayathome orders, and the decisions to maybe open up some businesses within the state . Guest i think he and mississippi, its been a start and stop effort. Our governor is a new governor. This pandemically beginning with the beginning of his administration. So he is a loyal supporter of the president and so he was very hesitant about shutting any businesses down. However as the pandemic went on, weve now closed our school nly ems, we have basically o essential businesses open. However, some of those essential businesses are in question. Like gun shops and what you have like that. Have you like that. But hes moving forward, hes constantly informing the public as to whats going on. And hes pushing out the statistics, the data, which i think is so important in this time. Host what about those you represent, what are they telling you about these decisions by the governor there, about reopening businesses and how hes handling that . Guest i think my district is very concerned about whether or not were doing enough testing. To find out the level of severity of this pandemic. So theyd love to have that. We have a problem with our School Districts. We have a number of our School Districts where we dont have Broadband Access for the students. So when our School Districts closed in many instances, our students are having a very difficult time trying to create an opportunity to complete the school year. So were challenged with this. More importantly is mississippi did not accept the Medicaid Expansion dollars that were offered by the Affordable Care act. So we have had a number of issues in Health Care Facilities , p. P. E. s, weve had lack of access to i. C. U. Beds and all of that. So were challenged. Every county i represent, which is 26, all except one is medically underserved. In a district like mine, we have to have all the resources available. And its a challenge. The one good spot is with the disaster declaration. Were able to access some supplies from fema that have been able to mitigate what otherwise would be a serious problem. Host when it comes then to your role as the Homeland Security committee chair, what are the questions you think have to be asked about the way that the administration has conducted the pandemic . Particularly when the house does return to capitol hill, what hearings do you think will take place . Guest obviously well have to have significant oversight on what the response was facilitated, with fema activated in a timely manner, did they wait too late to pull the drigtrigger . What about coordination between fema and h. H. S. , whether or not all states and localities were treated equitably and what was the overall plan once fema was brought onboard . Did the coordination occur . What about the stories you hear that fema was in the middle of private and local access to p. P. E. s and other items, why we didnt have enough ventilators to start with. And so well look at a lot of it. Part of it were trying to collect right now in terms of information. But we really are trying to support our front line people who the doctors and nurses, the other First Responders who are doing a wonderful job, and we dont want to get in the middle of trying to mitigate this situation. However, our congressional charge is to look at it. And if there were some shortcomings, we need to fix it. Host the house was supposed to return monday. Under advice from the house physician, it has been extended until later in may. A twoparty question, if you would. Was that the right decision . A what conditions have to exist do you think for the house to come back to capitol hill . Guest well, our leadership on proper did the exact situation. The best thing i can say to anyone listening, you have to follow the medical advice. The medical advice for the house was its not safe to come. We should not put members and their staffs, as well as constituents, at risk. So i support speaker pelosi, hoyer, whip clyburns decision not to come. The other thing we have to do is o look at those measurements that we hear, a twoweek drop in the number of cases. As you know, the District Of Columbia is considered one of the hot spots in the country. So it would not have been wise for us to come. So i think we have to continue to talk to the medical professionals to see whether or not we can come and be safe. In addition to that, well have to look at some alternatives in terms of voting from our districts. More use to look at of technology to operate our committees. The new normal will be very interesting for congress. As you know, most members of congress loved to meet people. They love to meet their constituents and others. But under this present scenario, thats impossible. For the most part. So well have to come up with a new protocol and that protocol has to be consistent with what the medical experts say. Host representative Bennie Thompson joining us on the phone. Democrat from mississippi. He serves as the chair of the Homeland Security committee. Here to talk about the federal response to the pandemic. Thank you for your time, sir. Guest thank you for having me. Host again, we showed you this poll from u. S. A. Today talking out federal responses to the coronavirus. For the next few minutes well get your comment as well on you what think as far as the response is concerned. Where you fall on that. You can call us on the phone lines, you can also tweet and text us too. Douglas from minneapolis says the effort is too little. Douglas, tell us why. Caller good morning. Thanks for the platform. I think its because its so disorganized and it doesnt seem. Have a national impetus leadership is a big aspect thats lacking. There doesnt seem to be a concerted notion about where were going, how were going to do this. For example, to me there should of the a meeting governors a long time ago in discussing a National Trajectory for how were going to deal with the pandemic. To say that, for example, one state has a low number of people that doesnt have the virus and therefore allowing them to do as they see fit is counterproductive because people. Ill move from place to place the other part is, for example, yesterday pence went to mayo clinic. Hes not wearing a mask. Even if you as an individual think that you dont have the to the ts an example Greater Public that relies on you for leadership. Thats what leadership is. Its not about, oh, ive been tested and im clear. You dont know that. Host ok. Lets go to mark in silver spring, maryland. Also says the response is too little. Guest yes, good morning. Thanks for taking my call. I think that testing is the key here and thats not very coordinated and all the states are supposed to do it separately. Theres a competition for how much these things cost. Im over 60. Im very sequestered at home. I have been for a while. Im missing going out and playing my favorite sport, pickleball much i dont trust pickleball. I dont trust doing that until i know theres more testing involved. People, people are talking about the positive and negative test, that can change every day, apparently. But the testing for the antibodies is i think maybe even more critical. Obviously they have to figure out if that means that they cant spread it or they cant get it again. And those are two big differences. So if you have the ant bodies and they figure out you cant get it ant bodies and they figure out you cant get it again, thats fine. But does that mean since it lives in you that you might still make be con takeous toward other people be contagious toward other people so you still have to be careful and wear the mask and all that stuff . Host from gainesville, georgia, mary says the response has been right amount. Hello. Lets go to darryl in south carolina. He says the response has been too much. Hes in greenville. Caller good morning. The reason im saying its too much is most state governments Unemployment Benefits are anywhere from 350 to 500 a week and then they democrats now theyre going to give another 600 a week federal stimulus unemployment money for four months. You got people that were making 15 an hour thats going to be able to have 500 and most of them will for four months and draw 1100 a week unemployment. Why would they want to go back to work for 15 an hour . You got to be small employers thats getting these grant money loans that want their employees they get it, its for given if they keep the people on their employment rolls. But the people are not going to want to work and theyre not coming back to work. Ive seen a lot of posts where Small Business owners are saying, you know, the employers hate them because they get these loans and try to get them back to work when they sat on their butt and draw 1200 a week. Then this congressman [indiscernible] wants to give everybody an extra 2,000 a month above that. Who is going to pay for all this stuff . Host michigan is next. Says the response is too little. Its thomas. Hi. Caller hi. This is tom in michigan. Host youre on. Caller thank you very much. Ive seen this, nothing s as bad as this has existed in all my 90 years. Trump should not be in charge of everything. He should leave it to the doctors and the people that know whats going on. I think theres a lot of money thats mismanaged. Theres people that are really suffering, human beings that are suffering. And i have not seen this it like this since the depression. Host if its being mismanaged, specifically how . Caller pardon me . Host how the money thats going out, the billions of dollars are disappearing. And nobody has done anything. People are still suffering. Sen. Schumer when you eat host when you say it disappearing, what do you mean . Areer the people who getting laid off cant even file. I have never seen anything like this. There is somebody from upstairs that is controlling this. Somebody should get us back on the path towards heavily god. There is story re is a new discussing on plumbing benefits, saying that the care tax specifies that these benefit payments will end up as repayments for the last week of 31st. Oyment, around july in milwaukee, wisconsin, arthur says theres the response. My personal reason i think this whole thing was a kneejerk reaction and they should never have shut down the country. Take care the medical problems you have to take care of and let the country run. Right now nobody knows what the total number cases are. We should have kept the government and people running, and not let Congress Stay home and be on vacation. Int thats arthur milwaukee, wisconsin. Economic news in the last bit of time, this is from the wall economyournal, the u. S. Shrank 4. 8 percent in the first harriet the writer torre said that this is the biggest drop in Quarterly Economic output since the Fourth Quarter of 2008, saying we are in the worst economic event that we have faced since the great depression, that was with the chief executive officer of the insurance, saying during an early an earnings call, that many economists have said the pandemic has put the u. S. Into a recession and the number of American Workers filing for jobless benefits is that more than 26 millions pointing to an unprecedented wave of layoffs and readings are showing record declines. When it comes to responses by the federal government, too little, too much, or the right amount. Little inits too boston, massachusetts. Haver i think you just the wrong people talking, like President Trump, who knows nothing about the Health Situation around the country. Host you have called in on the two little line, do you care to explain why . I was told to call this number here. Host do you think the response is too much, too little, or the right amount . Its the right amount, thats why you have people talking on tv. They shouldnt have President Trump talking about this, you should have the doctors. Since talking about skin stuff the other day and putting lysol on the body, not guys crazy, he must want to be elected. Wayne is in grantville, pennsylvania, and he says its the right amount. Caller i think its the right amount, you have to take the whole approach and look at the whole country. Individuals are an individual thing, but in reality, there are Different Things, new york is different than montana. Where look at january 1 we were, thats when china started telling the truth. From that time, things changed every day, every week. So every day, you need to look and say how would you leave if you had a one system Big Government taking care of it. It would not work. The only way it would work is by the governors looking at their individual states and people doing that as well. I think everybody is astute is doing as good as they can do given the changing nature. Host thats wayne, finishing this segment. The next one takes a look at the virus itself and the development of the vaccine, as well as other related matters. Dr. Robert vallow is the theunder and director of school of virology at the university of central maryland. But before that we want to show your press conference that took place in louisiana, the assistant secretary of health explain why its important for people to wear masks and demonstrated the correct way to wear one. [video clip] mask, notwere a cloth a medical grade one, i am limiting the potential virus shedding out of my face, spreading to others. We are limiting the likelihood that if any of us are asymptomatic or symptomatic that we are shutting the virus towards each other, its important that we do this, cloth masks are not designed to protect you, they protect everyone else. If everybody protects everyone else then you are protected. The proper way to where one is important, that could make it more or less effective. Its recommended that you store it in a bag. I have a clear one and i have the mask folded so that the inside part is touching together. So im not exposing the part that will be on my face. Ear, and try to adjust it as little as possible. The mask needs to cover my nose and mouth. We have to make sure you have the right size and if youre making your own mask, do some measuring. Make sure its not so loose that it is falling down constantly, but also that it is not so tight that it will irritate you. The idea is that you want to touch it as little as possible. And then touch your face as little as possible. Next, when youre taking off your mask and you realize you should have done this first, you need to wash her hands because juergen a touch your face. So some Hand Sanitizer to clean my hands and use the ear loops, and fold it in half. And im putting the mask back in my bag and i can carry that with me without problems. Im going to put this on as soon as were done with the press conference. I am keeping mostly six feet away from you all. Any time youre around individuals, indoors or outdoors, be at least six feet away but additionally wearing the mask as well. Day. Your masks every its important that they stay clean. So wash, dry, put them in your laundry or hand wash them, but thats critical. If they get dirty during the day you need to take it off and put on another mask. Washington journal continues. Dr. Robert gallo with the university of Maryland School of medicine serving at the institution of human virology. Cofounder and ernational advisor of the lets start by talking about your background and discovering viruses. And what you have learned and how that might apply to what you are seeing with covid19. Some i can give you analogies, but i really want to virusese that every different, really different. Its like another species. Like you see something in the Animal Kingdom and you can get lessons on how to respond to certain things, but each presents unique and special problems. , we showed that hiv was the cause of aids. Grow and hard virus to the disease does not show up until years later. So establishing strong evidence could get people to say this is , showing thatasy this virus, sars two, this coronavirus, is not easy to find, this replicates so much, its there, and obvious. And you dont argue about whether this is the cause or not, it presents different challenges. People have said they had never seen anything like this, but of course there have been epidemics like this. Broaden our to knowledgebase, or just read the course of history of medical silence medical science. 1918 killed aof quarter of the world. This carries rna, rather than mutationubject to more in each presents a problem, so whats unique about this . Theres the social impact in our lifetime, the magnitude of it. Whats unique about this, what is special and unusual is the extreme infectious nature. Its targeting a molecule on the surface of our human cells that it has a great affinity to latch onto. In addition to that, that molecule on the surface of cells is not limited to a specific cell type. For hiv, its restricted to a few cell types. Cell, andlar the t the subset of those t cells. It can also infect some other cells. But mainly thats it. Is problem with this virus that it infects a large number of cells and it spreads very fast. Because it infects so many cell types and cell numbers, reinfection can be very serious. But still, percent wise, theres not a high percent people. But older people are the ones in the biggest trouble, and with young people, only in unusual circumstances, until recently this regulation disorder which i if there isd up on an understanding of it is all. The special angle is how infectious this viruses. That does present more of a economic, political, nonscientific and scientific challenge. Host when it comes to the responses that federal and state governments have taken in response to what they have seen or the concerns they have had, were they appropriate . With stayathome orders . Guest baidu. Whats your choice . Who has not done that around the world. They say sweden has not but the swedes do it on their own anyway. But when i heard a Swedish Health official talking, he was ok with going on an airplane but said you should have six to eight feet of social distancing. How can that be true on an airplane . What if we had that policy . They would be a lot of criticism. And theres the argument that locally their shipping more control. As i was waiting here i heard one listener say that. I understand that and i think it is sensible. But when you think about it, what if you have a governor who is extremely lackadaisical . Or not competent . We have no choice but social distancing when we have no answer yet. Everybody says go to the scientists and medical people. But we dont have all the answers. Social ones. Ot the there you need the epidemiology people, more than you need particularly talented laboratory scientists. At this point you need the epidemiologists and political leaders. They have to be involved. They have to be strong and they have to listen to the best advice they can. Social,the things are some are political decisions that are just as good as this as a doctors decision. We need to solve the problem. You want to say weve done great, we have not. If you say why are we not better prepared, i saw an article in the Washington Post today from french leaders saying america was preparing for another 9 11, it did not happen and they got hit by a virus. Of course, they did as well and they say they could have they should have prepared. How could you prepare for, really . There are things you couldve done better early, in my view we dont have enough internationalism, a Global Pandemic requires global collaboration and knowledge. We have the Global Virus Network which im involved in, which i cofounded in 2011. The purpose is to stay informed and we talk to each other every weekend a half or so. Its directed by the former head of the Pastor Institute who i recruited to be president. He is quite effective in keeping the knowledge known. Governments should be less nationalistic, i dont mean that as a hostility of another country, to me it is self absorption, or being preoccupied only with the local and the self. We have to be international and collaborative and speak the truth. I think those are the only things we can do with the pandemic. China really knew that things were going on in november. Genome. A sequenced everyone and their mother will have a candidate vaccine because the sequences known and you can make proteins that correspond to them and start making vaccines all over the place which will happen. I dont know if they will be the right vaccines, we can talk about that if we have time, but we dont know what will be the right one. Some things can make matters more difficult and we have to be careful. With small Animal Studies first and then larger Animal Studies. What people probably dont know is that a chinese scientist protected about a year ago, in march of 2019 that there would be another bad coronavirus, likely by respiratory disease. Studiescted because he coronaviruss. We were not paying attention in the american scientific community. We just had this experience, just not as infectious with sars and mers. There are four common cold coronaviruss. So theres at least six that we know of which can cause fatal respiratory disease like mers and sars. They burned out quickly and we dont know why. Mers killed a lot of people, when it hit south korea it caused a lot of death and now it has gone away. Lets hope the same is true this but we cant predict it. Because the common cold comes back again and again. Host lets take a second to invite viewers into the conversation. For the eastern and central time zones, 202 7488000. For mountain and pacific time zones 202 7488001. If you are infected by covid19, 202 7488000. If you want to text us its 202 7488003. Testing dolevel of we need to develop the vaccination . I say really from day one one of the most important things we can do is widescale accurate testing of antibodies. A lot of times people will convert that into knowing if people are protected, no, you dont know, and you dont know that until you had the experience of seeing the antibodies are doing anything at all. Like to know it for sure, but more is in the tracing. This withoutace Antibody Testing . We cant. If we think there was a delay in the early response, that might be true. He would like to see it at the beginning, so you know who is infected and you trace who their contacts were to see who else is infected. If there antibody positive you can see it spread to them and see how far its going. Then you have those people infected really be isolated for a while, until they are no longer infectious. How long is that . We dont know. So you basin on previous experiences, some weeks or so, because some viruses stay around and the ways they are transmitted are mainly saliva, and maybe on surfaces that was found to be the case that they could be surface transmitted or transmitted a symptomatically. The government was wondering about that. On chinese were saying early that a symptomatic people could transmit the virus. So how much testing is enough . Too much testing is enough. We need is widened as quick as we can get a massive screaming screening. What iyoure wondering am implying, im implying that this is not an easy blood test for antibodies. Weause in the recent test have seen, including fda approved ones, theres too high false positivity. The last one approved had 5 false positives. Why . Its because there are very likely other coronavirus detections that cause colds and flu like symptoms. Should that be permanently a problem . I dont think so. Sophisticated studies of pieces of different proteins of this virus have regions that are , we have unique regions and we can get more specific causes of causative video so they are not reacting so much and maybe you decrease false positives to below 1 . Then it becomes extremely helpful. I dont criticize the fda for approving the less accurate tests, or the developing companies. They had to get something out as quickly as possible. Centers, for academic in big diagnostic Companies Like avid, it can really get into making the test more refined as rapidly as possible. This should have begun months ago, and it was. This is not so easy to make it as specific as we want. Thats what we need, specific and sensitive and out widely and rapidly. Go to our calls, zach, from bethesda, maryland. Go ahead. Caller i have a twopart question. Is there a difference between cov2 and covid 19. Guest should i answer . Host let him finish. Caller is there demographic breakdown russian mark ive heard some any Different Things. That most people who go to the hospital are 50, depending on how you break it up. And just because you dont die from it, you could have serious longterm consequences. I was wondering if you could answer two questions. Yes, everything you have implied is true even though you are making it a question, but the implications is that theres a difference with the names. There are. The who made the policy, when we talk about the virus versus the disease. You dont have to get it completely straight during the pandemic but covid19 is the disease. Thats what they are using for the disease. To this second sars is highly related to the first sars. Covformal name is sars coronavirus. If the second sars virus. And the disease is covid19. Of demographics, thats true. Older people get into worse trouble, younger people can have problems of significance, but they are more unusual. Thats why you read about the nursing homes. Not only are they relatively captive, or like on a boat or a but because of the aging population is suffering greater, and has an inability to fight the virus as well. They probably get infected easier. But thats not 100 established that they are infected easier as far as i know. Have reasons for why women are a bit less susceptible, because the receptor on the molecules of the cell surface comes in different forms. On women its on the x chromosome and women have two and so theres two xs theres more variation. We call the bad disease, the juncker the lung disease where you are suffocating because of the inflammatory cells, we call this an overreaction of the immune system with all sorts of inflammatory cells leading to a gradual inability to exchange oxygen. There are things blocking in between. Fishy, thatething has been stuck in my mind from the beginning. If we look at the great , peoplea, that period died of overwhelming inflammation of the lungs. But they were young people. Their immune system was hyperactive. Old people, not so much impacted with death as young people. The opposite is true today. So there something going on with the lung problem. And there was a study where there was a lot of virus still replicating in the long the lung. We would have thought that the virus would have been under of the, not so much virus direct effect of killing cells, apparently it is still going on. Complex. Ung problem is two medical scientists, its not just complicated. Bestot 100 sure with our way of dealing with it. We were thinking it was to block one of the molecules in the long. Ofs called i o six and a lot therapy was targeting that. But it appears to not be working well. Thats not an answer per se. Dr. I like to get to some other calls. Guest im sorry, i do go on and on. Youer good morning, thank dr. For taking the call. , im wondering if being used to treat the patients that are in hospitals due to the high level of blood clots that they are finding in these patients. I also saw an article about how thethinness of blood keeps virus from connecting to the tissues. Im wondering what your thoughts were . I dont have many. The best thing i can be with you in any interview is to be frank. And when i dont know something i have to say i dont know. I really dont know. We have a clinical director of human virology who is in the hospital right now who would know this answer well. Sensetainly seems to make , i suppose its being done and when you see the problem in front of your face you would go to an anticoagulant or a blood thinner. So i imagine the answer to that question is yes but is it being done repeatedly . I dont know. Host tim, in arkansas. Caller good morning. Note for cspan, you are covering a lot of medical stuff and very little economy stuff. Yes we have a disease but im concerned about 20 Million People out of work. I want to ask the doctor, we have some studies, with random testing of the population and 15 of the people tested are positive. If you cut that back to even 10 of the population being infected, we have 30 Million People infected in this country, and we had this death rate, at are we shutting down the government . Guest its because we have incompetent governors who wanted to expand their power to use their power. The one in its because we have incompetent governors who wanted to explain to expand their power. The governor new york decided not to purchased ventilators and instead to purchase solar panels or whatever, and now he cries to the federal government to bail him out because he shut down his economy and put a lot of his people out of work, and in new jersey. They dont care about the bill of rights. Host you have made the point, we will let the guest answer. Guest this is a Political Economic question of which i am neither. With my opinion on it, it is certainly an attack on governor cuomo. But hes been trying to do the right thing and explaining it rather well. Im not of the same viewpoint. You cant compare this to influenza. In some years, and lenses worse, in 1918 it killed a significant amount of the human race. , this is certainly worse than the typical flu season. First, it lasts longer, second, its unknown. You have no idea how long this will last and you dont know if theres a second or third wave. We dont know what disaster may come through the Southern Hemisphere. These are all unknowns. And an average year with influenza does not kill the number of people that this is killing. You never saw a nursing home get wiped out, or 25,000 people in an Apartment Building in singapore get infected and be in trouble. Thats not a typical influenza season. It can infect worldwide many people, the percentage of death of average influenza is nowhere near this level, look at north italy. You have a total experience were a lot of migrants came into work in the fashion industry, a lot are carrying the virus, look at the percentage of older people who have died. Look at the percentage of people who have died in United States. We dont see that with influenza. We may have a bad year we may see it, but imagine if this is here and we have a bad influenza season. You will be wishing for a strong Government Action and strong governor action. Im no economic expert, we all see that theres a huge problem. But if you are a leader, what do you do . Perhaps the governor has made mistakes, but i think acting strongly is not one of them. We have a viewer on twitter, when it comes to older victims of covid19, are there any indications that the pneumonia vaccinations are helping the symptoms . Guest i dont know anybody can get intout we vaccines. Host to the topic of vaccines, you said its the right vaccine which is ultimately the question, what did you mean . You want todo discuss vaccines do you want to go into vaccines . Host a little before the next call. Guest its not an easy 20 seconds, your show is not a sound bite, which is whats great about it, the immune system is complicated. When we think of a vaccine, we are taking the adaptive amine ,ystem, mainly, but not solely involving the lymphoid system. And be call t cells cells. The b cell makes the antibodies and the t cells formal web of. Ifferent interacting cells like killer t cells that can knock off viruses and do a great job of protecting us. The adaptive immune response can lifelong,sting, even the measles vaccine is lifelong for example. Others are a few years. We trye, like everything with monkeys and hiv, similar viruses trying to get an hiv vaccine, for reasons we are beginning to understand, are rather shortlived. Even if we have the right adaptive vaccine, so far the antibodies do not last long and we have to rely on the killer t cells. Adaptive immune response and there are many ways of approaching. China just reported positive results with a vaccine that you may have heard of. It has worked in a few animal models. They are getting some interesting results in humans. What is that vaccine . Its an adaptive immune response. It takes weeks to make antibodies and t cells. If you are a few months away from having an infective response and you dont have anything the first few months. But once you have it you should have memory and last a long time. So if you see this again, you are adapting from the beginning. Virus, likedead with thek did inactivated polio vaccine that requires injection into our tissue and you build an immune response which is rather longlasting. And you get certain antibodies and killer t cells. Measures and how it protects is not completely known. And thats true with a lot of vaccines. We dont really understand how they work, we think we know how they should but thats often not the case. So they used a dead virus. So what happens . The dead virus comes in and the proteins are chopped up in some cells and into little fragments and they are presented on the cell surface. They will not be inducing mainly antibodies, but they will be inducing the killer t cells to respond. They will recognize this as something that needs to be attacked and that can be protective. The adaptive thate system, the vaccines are really simple, and they are known with the gene sequences of this virus, from the chinese sincel scientists december sometime, they had to sequence. It was very fast, very easy. Not a lot of genes in this virus. A relatively small number. Once you have the sequence of the genes, anybody can go by a vaccine. You can get the complement of the sequence with the messenger rna molecule, and you can stick ,t by injection into the muscle and that will encode the protein, making it correspond to the messenger rna. Most people are doing the spike. Coronavirus, the the spike is my finger. Which is coming out of the cell and looking for its receptor. People want to target it. Just dial up and get the messenger rna made by any Biotech Company and start injecting it into people and that might be a successful vaccine. But it may not work because its short lasting. It has some similarities to the hiv spike protein. We see some similarities that ite us think that like hiv, can induce antibodies which are not longlasting which is potentially problem one. It would not do batter good, just nothing. Thatheres the possibility antibodies could be harmful. There are also reports from china that antibodies have. Nhanced lung disease so we have to be careful of what we are doing if we just willynilly go off and test messenger rna complements of sequences that are known and given to us from months ago that are from the chinese literature, we make a messenger for the spike and injected into people and off we go but they might work. Giving you the scenario where it doesnt work, or even the possibility of the negative effect, but it could work and work dramatically well. We have to test it carefully. Its going on in over 100 laboratories. I heard last night that it was over 80. So if you notice that many, its double because you dont know the labs working on it. And thats half the answer. In fromts get a call california, doug, you are on. Question, since youre talking about the susceptibility of older. How are colleges going to transition with that consideration as well, and making sure there are things like social distancing . Part that i missed, you mentioned the older people in social distancing. In between i did not hear. Our College Campuses going to adaptive social distancing, and what happens is colleges reopen. Guest i dont know. I dont see how you could easily do it. Run colleges daytoday, when i was in college you would have great difficulty with social distancing, how are you eating . Sleeping . Gathering together . I dont know. I guess the answer is when we are sure that the violent the virus has mainly been conquered or disappeared or slowing down we can come out. I understand the great agony for a lot of people, particularly in states where people are jobless at the moment. Theres not an easy answer to this. We are still away from that feeling of security. I would not know if i were the president of a college what the heck to do or how to do this. Could we do it from home . Have courses . Do everything online . Computerild up the systems even more . Really keeping people at home and learning at home. I dont know what of their answer to give. Host lets go to tom, in baltimore. Caller dr. , thank you for your explanation. My question is that some leaders in our country and other places have said that we will have a vaccine soon, is that a realistic anticipation . Guest im glad youve asked about a vaccine, i was telling pedro that i was only halfway through, let me finish the other half, because its worth pushing. I talked about the adaptive , you get specific, longlasting hopefully, you can use antibodies to fight a disease and you have a memory core. But theres another part of the immune system, part two is what we call the innate immune system. Which response is an emergency, immediately. It would seem that this is an rna virus. We have sensors in our cell that says this rna should not be here, you ring an alarm bell and you get molecules immediately but not longlasting or specific but can do the job. Some species have only the innate immune system. Invertebrates, cartilaginous animals, they dont have lymphocytes or the ability for an adaptive immune response. They are well protected against virus infections from the innate immune system. So you say how long does that last . Not long, not years, maybe a few months, maybe three. But what if you had that and you could break the back of the academic epidemic and get a year out of it . It would be nonspecific. Strange but true. So how does it work . We dont know. Its a hot area of research. Virus do know that interference is involved, a russian couple coined the term when they were watching polio. They there was a tremendous innate immune system response and later adaptive immune response which was very effective in the vaccine used in much of the world and is being used now in parts of Southeast Asia and india. Inreceived a between 1962 1997. Perfectly safe and simple. Feasible, and the russian scientists observed their son is action my colleague and collaborator at the fda where he is the associate director for vaccine development. His parents made that observation that the oral polio vaccine gave perfection protection against influenza in the 1970s and has been confirmed again and again and is tucked away in the literature and people forgot about it and we are trying to resurrect that rapidly for preparation of this virus in the Southern Hemisphere or returning, even in pockets of america today, where there are high rates of infection. I believe it will work and i believe it could break the back of the epidemic and we should move faster with it, myself included, in talking about this subject. Host dr. Robert gallo is with school of maryland and is the cofounder of the Global Virus Network. This is melinda, in pennsylvania. Go ahead. Forer i have a question the doctor regarding testing. I hear testing, testing, testing, and my husband and i have a test today, and its negative, what could prevent it from five days from now if we start feeling unwell and we find out that we have the virus whats the good of testing if it if it doesnt last for long time . It depends on two things and its a good question. It depends on what the test is. The first test that people do is for the virus itself, testing for the genetic information, the rna we have been talking about. If you get rna positivity, you have the virus swimming about and you are on your way. Its active. Whether its serious, most infections, like one gentleman brought up, it doesnt kill everybody. It kills a minority, especially if you are younger a very small minority are impacted. Positivity, you have the virus. It doesnt matter what the itibody test shows because takes weeks to make antibodies. So from the time you are infected. Be then the positivity could negative. Theres no more virus detected in the swab of the mucosal membrane in the mouth for saliva. Someone might say lets look in your blood and may not find it. But the antibodies are positive. So you were ineffective at one point and may be were now protect it. We dont have enough time and experience to say that the antibody response means you are protected, might be for some people with certain high levels. But sometimes antibodies are not protective. Its just a way of keeping track. Without that we have no knowledge of all at all. But what good is it for you on a personal level, if your test was viral and in rna, you are not actively producing the virus and thats good. You could be infected a month ago and the virus is no longer detectable but the antibodies are lasting longer. I would have an Antibody Test if i thought i had been sufficiently exposed. If these last a long time, see only way of having knowledge of the epidemic. It might not be dear to your heart but its important for the masses at large. We want to know if this thing is people haveow many been caring antibodies. We hope those antibodies are longlasting, and if there are many more people who are infected. We dont have enough time to say that yet, but we can assume for the moment that antibodies will be longlasting. And its the only way we can really track the epidemic. For you, personally, get tested periodically. If we have the same routine and not for much money we would be testing a lot more and you would be more secure in knowing. Better to know the not to know. , in newrt is next jersey. Caller thank you for taking my call. , i have arned a lot few things that are questions and comments. On china, do we have the original strain to work with . Stats ofe tracking any common deaths . Food deaths, are they rolled into the numbers . And my daughter is an anesthetist on an incubation team. I said to my daughter, why am i scared of this and no one can tell me why. She says its really contagious and obese people are the number one people who have to worry about this. I will take my answers off the air. Yout did you really say were not educated . Host youve gone. Guest how humble, we are all. Neducated, its all relative and your questions were very good, every one of them. I hope i remember them, now youre testing me. The first question you asked is do we have the first train. I doubt anybody knows what the thet virus strain is, whos first person to be infected. Samples that have been transferred from other laboratories, laboratories and singapore were collaborating from the start. They and china are part of the global light Global Virus Network. We talk to each other and its one of the powers that we can communicate to each other. The government has its , but we have china and theia and singapore scientists were involved in the very early days of the epidemic and they have a lot of information which has come to us from china as chinese scientists are open with us. They publish the sequence, and once you have the sequence you dont need the virus, you have everything you need to know. So we do have early strains. Has it mutated . Rna viruses mutate all the time. We have seen more mutations in the United States and europe but more time has gone by. Theres been no meaning so far in the mutation, meaning theres no correlation at the virus is getting more lethal or dangerous or more resistant to this or that possible drug. Theres no biological imprint from these mutation studies so far. Thenything, it seems that virus is getting less fit. It cannot in fact quite as readily when it has these additional mutations. I dont think we can make any predictions about where its going. , i am anof obesity md, but im not involved in patient care, just in Laboratory Research with people all around me who are really the daytoday operations people. Know, its more than obesity. People with diabetes, if you saw todays paper, it would emphasize cancer, if you have chemotherapy and radiation, your immune system is not the same. Cancer has detrimental effects on the immune system. Its not just obesity, its other chronic illnesses with an impact on the immune system. And since a problem america is an obese nation in general, we could have more problems simply because of that. Certain populations are more prone to obesity and it might be impacting the higher percent of serious illness we have in certain ethnic groups. Indiana actually in hawaii, alan, go ahead. Caller dr. Gallo, its good to hear your voice. I think i saw you years ago i the university of hawaii, do you remember . Guest i do ive been there a few times. Caller i remember you. Light bulbs are going off in my head, i have a few questions and i know you have a short timeframe. The question that keeps is about the big contention that theres manipulation in the genes that one doctor seems to recognize, i dont know if you have seen that or have comments, and the other ,uestion has to do with mmr with would it produce an immune response, even though there is some contention of that. Im fascinated to hear you on screen, its incredible and i hope you are thriving. Thank you for taking my questions. When i ask how i am, i always say that i am but dont know how. I still worked to death fulltime. About i dont recall the doctors name, but he suggesting that its manmade likely in china. Its not manmade. Not being the same as man enabled, i dont know if its man enabled. You can tell the handprint of a genetically man manipulated virus. If you took the coronavirus and manipulated it in a lab and found it to be more infectious and then deliberately did something with it, or accidentally, there will be telltale signs of manipulation. It is not. Nobody made this. No scientist on earth made this. But it is possible that studying it in a lab, theres a lot of coronavirus going on, and there was a lot going on in wuhan. Could this be an accidental escape . Nobody would let it escape on purpose, it would kill yourself and everyone around you. We have to stop thinking that way and be closer to chinese medical scientists. I dont like some of the things the Chinese Government does but its a big mistake to cut off our relationships with chinese colleagues. They are critical and important. Chineseamerican scientists and chinese medical scientists want to Work Together with us and they do what they can and provide a lot of information. It is possible that by accident and carelessness that viruses escape from laboratories and i cannot rule that out. I dont think anyone can absolutely rule that out. Its a possibility and it could have gotten into another species as there was some suggestions, but not strong evidence, that this comes out of bats. They were talking for a while ofut a species thats kind an armored anteater, a pangolin, which is apparently used for food. And people would make criticism of that. But try starvation for a few hundred years. This was a wild caught animal, now imported to parts of china from malaysia. Things as well, including snails. Its cultural and every culture has its oddities, especially when they go through centuries of starvation on and off. So thats what i can say related to the fellow who things its manmade. I understand that there are stories that make it a suspicion, theres a military base nearby, there are coronavirolo gists, and theres possible manipulation of the coronavirus, but that it was to liberally let go is nonsense. An accidental loss is some issue. Host the next call is from mary, in massachusetts. Wondering about symptoms. Are there different symptoms it couldnot common and still be the virus . I have a huge swollen gland on one side of my face, suddenly on sunday. And it was said to be a blockage of the salivary gland. And istill hanging around am very suspicious of it, im a senior, very much a senior. I was hoping i didnt have to worry about the coronavirus. And i would like to say what they talk about the wet markets in china, a lot of people who are asian, like from india, talk about the wet markets and how filthy they are. And apparently this was wild bats, that people purchase and eat. They say they are filthy, and isnt there anything we can do against china to make them put food and people buying having those wet markets. Host we will let our guest respond. Guest let me go to the first part first. You have a swollen carotid gland, doctors diagnosed it. Thats generally from little the dockedclog up that carry the saliva from your cheek to your mouth and its important for the digestion of carbohydrates because of the them. S that help digest ther thats a possibility i would think the virus can do almost anything, it affects a wide range of cells. Could it lead to a carotid gland blockage . I imagine that it could. Have i heard of any such cases . No. To ask . D doctor no, i would have to ask a clinical doctor. I have not seen it described but i dont read the details from the literature because of the time. We call a tropism, the cell that the virus targets, they are called t tropics, i dont know because its hitting so many different kinds of cells. I would not be surprised if it caused gland abnormalities, including what youve described. Why wouldnt you good yourself adequate theres testing in the area you live in in massachusetts . I dunno what else to say about that. As far as markets, im not an international policeman, i dont work for interpol. You are intervening with another country and that could be leading to problems that affect the world. Thats really determined to be the case, there would be Strong International pressures, properly presented at Something Like the united station United Nations for china to step in and do something. You might imagine that the Chinese Government is not without in without power in doing what they need to make regulations. So if they come to that conclusion they will step in. I have been to china many times, i dont know the markets we are talking about, i dont think ive ever been to one. Had any particular complaints and chat and traveling in various places in. Hina we are not perfectly sanitary, we have our problems with rodents and we always will. But if this is proven to be or strongly shown to likely be the origin of spreading of the epidemic in china, i would bet they would squeeze those markets down and are probably doing it already if they come to that conclusion thats all i can say. Maine,ne more call from jason, go ahead. Caller thank you so much for having me. Yourallo, thank you for information and experience. My first comment, i cant agree with you more, more people in the world need to know that working globally in order to figure out and understand the order to understand the virus and react to the virus is so very important. My question is not medical, it is more infrastructure do we have the infrastructure to do the testing we need to do in this country . The Antibody Testing as well as diagnosis testing. And do we have the infrastructure in order to, when we do get the vaccine, to produce it . Host i apologize, we will have to leave it there. A quick response, doctor. Guest i think we do have the infrastructure needed if we get the right kinds of tests. It will be put into practice vary widely, as with hiv. We just need to get to the right test fast. Letsthink with vaccines, get on with the early polio vaccine, i believe it could stop the epidemic and i believe it will help us with influenza. It is cheap, simple commuters put it under your tongue. From the robert gallo university of maryland. We thank you for joining us today. Right now, we will take you to the state department for a coronavirus related briefing from the secretary of state. Sec. Pompeo we are very focused on that, even when the virus challenge confronts us all. That is what i will spend my time talking about today. First, stabilizing the most unstable places. In venezuela, the multilateral effort to restore democracy is continuing to build momentum. I have asked my team to update plans to reopen the u. S. Embassy in caracas,